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Theme Of Innocence In Lord Of The Flies

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In the novel Lord of The Flies by William Golding, the boys progressively lose their innocence through the story. The story is about a group of schoolboys stranded on a tropical island after their plane crashed onto the island. In the crash all the adults that were supervising the boys were killed, leaving the boys alone on the island to fend for themselves. After the boys realize what has happened they quickly choose a leader, Ralph, who they listen to early on in the story. As their story goes on they start to become disobedient and more violent participating in pig hunts where they enter a trance and don’t stop until they’ve killed a pig. Further in the story it becomes clear that the group of hunters is becoming more violent and less “innocent” as they attack a young boy and disobey what Ralph asks. Even though the boys are young, they lose their innocence as the story goes on by doing evil and heinous things. They have never had such power. This causes chaos and lots of violence breaks out due to the disagreements between Ralph and Jack. The problem is that they have to adopt the roles of adults, but they lack the experience and knowledge to successfully resume these roles. There is a lack of authority and power on the island. What happens is that both Jack and Ralph resume authority which divides up the group of boys.“’I'm chief,’ said Ralph, ‘because you chose me. And we were going to keep the fire going. Now you run after food—‘”(150). This is Ralph claiming his authority.“I ought to be chief,” said Jack with simple arrogance,“because I'm chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp” (22). This is Jack trying to claim leadership. Both boys believe that they have leadership and they do not get along with each other. Jack turns violent in the novel and is mean towards the other boys. The violence that the boys have towards each other is a large part of why they lose innocence. Also you can see that there is a lot of symbolism that supports the loss of innocence. In the beginning to the book the group describes the island as a paradise with beaches and fruit, but as the story goes on the island begins to turn “dark”. The reason the island is going “dark” is that the boys are

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