Throughout the novel "Lord Of the Flies," author William Golding incorporates characters, objects, and events which represent concepts or ideas pertaining to the flaws of mankind. These things are known as allegories, because they are symbols that stand for the truths about human life. Golding uses allegory as a literary device to advance the story's significance beyond just an adventure fable. The book scrutinizes human behaviour in its most natural and un-conditioned shape and proves to be one big allegory. The story is composed of several different allegories including elements linked with religion, government and the contrariety of intelligence and power in society. Overall the tale of the British schoolboys who find themselves stranded on a tropical island goes beyond what the reader may conceive and it is evidential that "Lord Of the Flies" is an allegorical novel.
In this story William Golding employs religious allegory, linking parts of his novel to several biblical stories and portrays Simon as a Christ-like figure. Some events and setting details prove this novel to contain religious allegory, considering they are almost parallel to those in the bible. The tropical island is comparable to the Garden of Eden and the boys' behaviour to the story of Adam and Eve. The island is like the Garden of Eden before the boys arrive because it is peaceful and pure, just like how before God created man, the Garden of Eden was also a place of tranquility and untouched beauty. Upon the arrival of humankind in both places though, they become much less like paradise and ultimately carry out the same fate. With the coming of the boys and their savage behaviour, it is evident that they are eventually responsible for the complete destruction of the island. .
Beginning with the first act of mankind disrupting the earth on the island, a big mark is left by the boys' crashing plane, "All around him the long scar smashed into the jungle.
