TALES OF INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE:

A STUDY OF THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER

AND LORD OF THE FLIES

DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CALICUT

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF

MASTERS OF ARTS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

PRABHUL. E. N
Reg No: ZGANMEG 012

POST GRADUATION DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

THE ZAMORIN’S GURUVAYURAPPAN COLLEGE

KOZHIKODE – 673014

JUNE 2015
 TALES OF INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE:
A STUDY OF THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
AND LORD OF THE FLIES

DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CALICUT

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF

MASTERS OF ARTS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

PRABHUL. E. N
Reg No: ZGANMEG 012

POST GRADUATION DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

THE ZAMORIN’S GURUVAYURAPPAN COLLEGE

KOZHIKODE – 673014

JUNE 2015
ARYA GOPI
Assistant Professor
Post Graduation Department of English
The Zamorin’s Guruvayurappan College
Calicut – 14

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that this dissertation entitled, Tales of Innocence and
Experience: A Study of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Lord of the Flies
submitted to the University of Calicut in partial fulfilment of the requirement for
the award of the degree of Masters of Arts in English Language and Literature, is
the result of bona fide research done by Prabhul. E. N with Reg No:
ZGANMEG 012 under my guidance and supervision. It is further certified that
this dissertation has not included in any other dissertation or submitted for the
awards of any degree, diploma, fellowship or other similar titles or recognition.

ARYA GOPI
Assistant Professor
Post Graduation Department of English
The Zamorin’s Guruvayurappan College
Calicut – 14

Place: Calicut – 14
Date:

Counter Signed by

Dr. M. E. Sobha
( The Head of Department of English)
 DECLARATION

I, Prabhul. E. N, hereby declare that the dissertation entitled Tales of

Innocence: A Study on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Lord of The Flies
is the result of bona fide research carried out by me under the guidance and
supervision of ARYA GOPI, Assistant Professor, Post Graduation Department
of English, The Zamorin’s Guruvayurappan College and has not previously
formed the basis of the award of any degree, diploma, fellowship or titles or
recognition.

ARYA GOPI
Assistant Professor
Post Graduation Department of English
The Zamorin’s Guruvayurappan College
Calicut – 14

Place: Calicut – 14
Date:
 Acknowledgement

For the successful completion of this work I have received valuable help
from different sources. I hereby express my profound gratitude to my teacher and
guide ARYA GOPI, Assistant Professor, Post Graduation Department of
English, The Zamorin’s Guruvayurappan College. It was her most valuable
suggestion and advice, which activated my thought for the successful completion
of this work. I place on record my gratitude to Dr. M. E. Sobha, Head of
Department of English, The Zamorin’s Guruvayurappan College, for her support.

A special thanks to Geetha Suresh and Lincy Michael, teachers at SNES

College, Calicut for the great support. I would like to thank my friend Nitha for
her strong help and support. I would like to thank the librarian, C. H. Mohammed
Koya Memorial Library, University of Calicut. I also express my sincere gratitude
to all my teachers and friends for their valuable support without which I could
never complete this dissertation. I am grateful to all those who have directly or
indirectly helped me to complete this dissertation.

Prabhul. E. N

Place: Calicut – 14
Date:
 CONTENTS

Sl. No Chapter Page No.

1. Introduction 1 -9

2. Chapter 1
Regeneration of Childhood 10 – 24

3. Chapter 2
Loss of Innocence 25 – 50

4. Conclusion 51 - 54

5. Bibliography 55 - 57
 INTRODUCTION

“When we are children, we seldom think of the future. This innocence

leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults. The day we fret about the

future is the day we leave our innocence childhood behind”

-Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind (the king killer chronicle

#1)

What is appealing about children? It’s not their physical beauty or their

openness to loving and being loved or their playfulness or innate humor. Beyond

all these, children are beautiful because they possess something that we have all

lack as we grow older by age- the quality of innocence.

The gap between innocence and experience is endlessly explored, like a

gap in a tooth, by artists and writers. Innocence is also the growth of self-

consciousness, perhaps the “tree of the knowledge of the good and evil” referred

to in the story of Adam and Eve. Once you have lost innocence, you cannot regain

it in its original form certainly.

Innocence is basically a word that we can only apply to children and young

teenagers who don’t have a clue about the world. They believe that everything

will turn out right, no matter what you do and no matter what happens to them,

they are happy. They never really pickup on the big things in life, like how they

have to score good marks in school or what they are going to be when grown up.
Life as a child is easy because they just ignored the fact that there are bad things

in life. They always think that life is good and that it will get better as you grow

older.

In this dissertation explores two novels Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom

Sawyer and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies- which portrays universality of

childhood. The age groups of the major characters are nine to fourteen years old

which means preadolescence. Freud called this stage the latency period to

indicate that sexual feelings and interest went underground ... the feelings that

create that first "eternal triangle" with the parents fade, and free energy for other

interests and activities. Erik H. Erikson confirmed that violent drives are normally

dormant ... a lull before the storm of puberty, when all the earlier drives re-emerge

in a new combination, to be brought under the dominance of gentility.

Latency period children can then direct more of their energy into asexual

pursuits such as school, athletics, and same-sex friendships: middle childhood

especially is marked by the importance of school, teams, classes, friends, gangs

and organized activities ... and the adults who run those. Nevertheless recent

research suggests that "most children do not cease sexual development, interest

and behavior" at this time: rather, they "cease to share their interest with adults

and are less frequently observed." Because "they've learned the rules ... [they] fit

in with the grown-up's belief that they're not interested. But the curiosity about it
all continues, and there's quite a lot of experimenting going on between

them.' alongside other pursuits

But while the eight-year-old still has years to wait until puberty,

adolescence and finally sexual maturity, a sort of lull before puberty arrives, with

preadolescence proper (9–12), and the move forward from middle childhood,

what have been called 'the introspective and social concerns of the

prepubescent tend to come more to the fore. Clearly "few experiences are more

prominent in the lives of preadolescents than the onset of puberty", so that "at

eleven or twelve you're just reaching the end of a long period during which

change was steady and incremental" Freud's latency years.

William Blake tells about innocence and experience in his poetry. He talks

about childhood innocence to loss of innocence in adolescence. ‘Innocence’ and

‘Experience’ are definitions of consciousness that rethink Milton's existential-

mythic states of "Paradise" and the "Fall ". Blake's categories are modes of

perception that tend to coordinate with a chronology that would become standard

in Romanticism: childhood is a state of protected innocence rather than original

sin, but not immune to the fallen world and its institutions. This world sometimes

impinges on childhood itself, and in any event becomes known through

"experience," a state of being marked by the loss of childhood vitality, by fear

and inhibition, by social and political corruption, and by the manifold oppression

of Church, State, and the ruling classes. The volume's "Contrary States" are
sometimes signaled by patently repeated or contrasted titles: in Innocence, Infant

Joy, in Experience, Infant Sorrow; in Innocence, The Lamb, in Experience, The

Fly and The Tyger. The stark simplicity of poems such as The Chimney Sweeper

and The Little Black Boy display Blake's acute sensibility to the realities of

poverty and exploitation that accompanied the "Dark Satanic Mills" of the

Industrial Revolution.

If you are unsure of your role in life, you may be experiencing an identity

crisis. The term was introduced by theorist Erick Erickson, according to him, an

identity crisis is a time of intensive analysis and exploration of different ways of

looking at oneself. He also believed that it is one of the most important conflicts

people face is development and it is very evident in adolescence. During

adolescence most of a person’s biological, cognitive, psychological and social

status is changing from what is considered to be childlike to what is considered

as an adult like. In contemporary society adolescents face institutional change

also. The schools set up of the adolescents are also subject to a major change.

Coping up with these changes is a major challenge during adolescence.

Parents and adolescent children approach life issues, situations and

incidents differently and it results in difference of opinion among them. This

difference is supposed to arise from what is called a generation gap and is a

challenge faced by adolescents. This is mainly the result of the constant change

in the society. During adolescence the change is fast and hard to keep with. This
problem of adjustments to changes is a serious challenge. Adolescents are

sometimes regarded as children and sometimes as adults. They face a serious

challenge in copying with the different approach simultaneously taken by the

adults. Adolescence act differently in order to get acceptance of their peer groups.

These acts are often opposed by the parents and other adults. This can also lead

to conflict. Thus a period of rapid and constant changes adolescence are prone to

face many challenges and a well built personality during childhood will enable

them to face these challenges confidently and thus to become an adult useful to

himself/herself, to the family and society

Lord of the Flies is a by Nobel Prize winning English author William

Golding about a group of British boys stuck on an uninhabited island who try to

govern themselves with disastrous results. It stands on the already controversial

subject of human nature and individual welfare versus the common good. As the

boys on the island progressed from well-behaved, orderly children longing for

rescue to cruel, blood thirsty hunters who have no idea to return to civilization,

they naturally loose the sense of innocence that they possessed at the beginning

of the novel. The painted savages, who have hunted, tortured, and killed animals

and human beings are far cry of the guileless children swimming in the lagoon in

chapter 3. But Golding does not portray this loss of innocence as something that

is done to the children; rather, it results naturally from their increased openness

to the innate evil and savagery that has always existed with them. Golding implies
that civilization can migrate but never wipe out the innate evil that exists within

all human beings. The forest glade in which Simon sits in chapter 3 symbolizes

the loss of innocence. At first, it’s a place of natural beauty and peace, but when

Simon returns later in the novel, he discovered the bloody sow’s head impaled

upon a stake in the middle of the clearing. The bloody offering to the beast has

disrupted the paradise that existed before a powerful symbol of innate human evil

disrupting childhood innocence. He also talks about the Freudian aspects the Id,

the Ego and the Superego in the characters Ralph, Piggy and Simon.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is an 1876 novel about a

young boy growing up along the Mississippi River. The story is set in the

fictional town of St. Petersburg, inspired by Hannibal, Missouri, where Twain

lived. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer depicts the life of an imaginative,

troublesome boy in the American West of the 1840s. The novel is intensely

dramatic in its construction, taking the form of a series of comic vignettes based

on Tom's exploits. These vignettes are linked together by a darker story that

grows in importance throughout the novel, Tom's life-threatening entanglement

with the murderer Injun Joe. Tom doesn’t want to grow up; he wants to roam the

streets, causing trouble where ever he is, but every child has to grow up. Every

child makes the journey from innocence to experience, whether they want to or

not.
 Becoming pirates or robbers runs through Tom Sawyer’s mind. His

innocent mind shows the fun of becoming someone like them. When Tom will

become more experienced he will see that these jobs involve many cruel, harsh

things like stealing, killing, and turning true happiness away. Tom is not at that

point yet so all he sees through his innocent eyes is fun and games. Tom’s

innocence leads him to the wrong place at the wrong time. Huck and Tom think

that by swinging a dead cat over their heads in a graveyard at midnight will cure

warts. This leads them to becoming witnesses to a murder. Tom and Huck then

realize that the world isn’t just fun and games. Even though life isn’t full of

games, Tom’s mind thinks it is. Many young children think a lot like Tom. When

a child is innocent they think that they can always play games and never have to

work. Adults are more experienced than children but in their minds they have not

fully become experienced, and that leads them to wishing sometimes that they

didn’t have to work and that money could grow on trees. Children don’t think

about their future, thinking that their parents will do it for them. As children grow

up they start to understand that their choices decide their future.

Though the journey from innocence to experience is long, many things help

the journey seem to go quicker. During school, sports, holidays help us be

ourselves and not care about how much we’re not experienced and show our

innocence through many ways. Playing crazy games, making silly pranks shows

our innocence is like any other child’s. Everyone may be different but the journey
from innocence to experience is something everyone has to go through no matter

how you look, act, and try to get away from it.

In both the novels, the age groups of the major characters are nine to fifteen

years old, which means Adolescence. Usually it starts from the age of nine to the

age of fifteen. Adolescence is life between childhood and adulthood. It extends

from the physical beginning of physical maturity to the social achievement of

independent adult status. It is a period of transition in all sense; that is physical,

psychological and social approaches. As change takes place in all these areas lot

of challenges are faced by adolescence.

The construction and deconstruction of childhood and its trajectories

always happen in accordance with the social and cultural settings. The concept

and aspect of childhood innocence exists in parallel with the concept of childhood

guilt. This study explores these extremes in detail. The first chapter Regeneration

of Innocence focuses on the change in Tom Sawyer from childhood to adulthood.

The Second one Loss of Innocence discusses on the loss of childhood and the

guilt when the children realize their mistakes. It is interesting to note that

‘innocent’ is a derivation from ‘nocere’ meaning ‘to harm’. Actually the essential

nature of human beings is not always the same. Contingent situations make one’s

action moulded in its restrictions and boundaries. Innocence, revival of

innocence, regeneration of innocence, loss of innocence etc evolve above the man

made barricade of character construction of an individual.

 CHAPTER 1

REGENERATION OF INNOCENCE

“Remaining childish is a tremendous state of innocence.

-John Lydon

The convergence of natural instincts like naughtiness, innocence and

cunningness resulted in the creation of a character like Tom Sawyer. In

Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the hero Tom exploits the innocence of his fellow

kids in his village. In the novel there are many instances for this. In chapter 2, on

a mundane Saturday morning, Aunt Polly sends Tom out to whitewash the fence.

Jim passes by, and Tom tries to get him to do some of the whitewashing in return

for a “white alley,” a kind of marble. Jim almost agrees, but Aunt Polly appears

and chases him off, leaving Tom alone with his labour.

A little while later, Ben Rogers, another boy of Tom’s age, walks by. Tom

convinces Ben that whitewashing a fence is great pleasure, and after some

bargaining, Ben agrees to give Tom his apple in exchange for the privilege of

working on the fence. Over the course of the day, every boy who passes ends up

staying to whitewash, and each one gives Tom something in exchange. By the

time the fence has three coats, Tom has collected a hoard of miscellaneous

treasures. Tom muses that all it takes to make someone want something is to make

that thing hard to get.

 The brush continued to move.

“Like it? Well I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get

a chance to whitewash a fence every day “Oh come, now, you

don’t mean to let on that you like it?”

?”

That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple.

Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth—stepped back to note

the effect—added a touch here and there—criticized the effect

again—Ben watching every move and getting more and more

interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said:

“Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.”

(Twain, 16)

This interchange between Ben Rogers and Tom occurs during the

whitewashing episode from Chapter 2. One of Tom’s earliest adventures in the

novel, the whitewashing scam gives us a thorough initial look at Tom’s ingenious

character. Most evident in this dialogue with Ben Rogers is Tom’s consummate

skill as an actor and his instinctive understanding of human behaviour. In these

moments of prankish virtuosity, Tom always keeps one step ahead of his victims,

anticipating their reactions and cornering them verbally into the response he

desires. Twain draws on the American folk tradition of the trickster. (The Br’er

Rabbit tales are another well-known example of this type of story.) ‘If he hadn’t
run out of whitewash, he would have bankrupted every boy in the village’, saying

this Mark Twain ends the whitewashing event.

This episode also gives Twain a chance to advance the idea that certain

values are as much a matter of convention as anything. The moral with which

Twain concludes this amusing scene is, “Work consists of whatever a body

is obliged to do, and . . . lay consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”

The arbitrariness of many conventions and the absurdity with which people desire

things just because they are forbidden are facts of life that Twain scrutinizes again

and again in the novel.

Huckleberry was cordially hated and dreaded by all the mothers of the town

because he was idle, and lawless, and vulgar, and bad - and because all

their children admired him so, and delighted in his forbidden society, and

wished they dared to be like him.

(Twain, 17)

Chapter 6 talks about the open admiration of tom and other students in that

village for Huckleberry Finn, the son of the town drunkard. Huck is ‘cordially

hated and dreaded by all the mothers of the town,’ who fear that he will be a bad

influence on their children. But every boy, including Tom, admires Huck and

envies him for his ability to skip school and work without fear of punishment.

Huck enjoys what Tom and every other mischievous boy secretly wishes he could

attain complete freedom from adult authority. Unlike Tom, who is parentless but
has Aunt Polly to limit his liberty, Huck has no adults or guardians controlling

him at all. His father is the town drunkard, leaving Huck to wander as he pleases

‘everything that goes to make life precious, that boy had.’ From a boy’s

perspective, Huck can do all the important things swimming, playing, cursing,

fishing, walking barefoot without enduring the burdens of church, school,

personal hygiene, or parental harassment. The pure innocent admiration of the

kids as well as Tom Sawyer is evident here. They don’t know what is good and

what is bad, they are still in pre adolescent stage. Both virtue and vice are treated

in neutrally innocent manner by them.

Later, the biggest twist in the novel happens, it changes the life of Tom

and Huck. Tom sneaks out of bed and goes to the graveyard with Huck. They

hide in a clump of elms a few feet from the fresh grave of Hoss Williams and wait

for devils to appear. After a while, three figures approach the grave. The boys

believe with horrified delight that these are the devils, but they turn out to be three

adults from the town carrying out a midnight mission of their own. Tom and Huck

are surprised to discover the young Dr. Robinson accompanied by two local

outcasts, the drunken Muff Potter and Injun Joe. Dr. Robinson orders the other

two men to dig up Hoss Williams’s corpse, presumably for use in medical

experiments. After they finish the job, Potter demands extra payment, and

Robinson refuses. Injun Joe then reminds Robinson of an incident that happened

five years earlier, when Injun Joe came begging at the Robinsons’ kitchen door
and was turned away. Injun Joe now intends to have his revenge. A fight ensues;

Dr. Robinson knocks Injun Joe down and then is attacked by Potter. He uses Hoss

Williams’s headstone to defend himself, knocking Potter unconscious. In the

scuffle, Injun Joe stabs Dr. Robinson with Potter’s knife. The terrified boys flee

without being detected by the men. Eventually, Potter awakens and asks Injun

Joe what happened. Injun Joe tells the drunk Potter that Potter murdered Dr.

Robinson in a drunken fury, and Potter, still dazed, believes him. Injun Joe

promises not to tell anyone about the crime, and they part ways. Before Injun Joe

leaves the graveyard, however, he notes smugly that Potter’s knife remains stuck

in the corpse.

The graveyard scene constitutes a turning point in the plot, as it is the first

of Tom’s adventures that has any moral significance. Up to this point, Tom’s

adventures have been playful and innocent. As Tom and Huck witness Dr.

Robinson’s murder, the sordid adult world imposes itself upon their childhood

innocence. When they see the figures approaching the grave, both boys assume

them to be devils, among the most terrifying things they can envision. Ironically,

the presumed devils turn out to be real men who become more frightening than

any childhood superstition or imagined vision.

After witnessing the crime, Tom and Huck’s immediate inclination is to

flee, both physically and symbolically. They run from the scene of the crime back

into their world of childhood games by signing a “blood oath” to keep what they
have seen a secret. Knowing nothing about Injun Joe’s plan to blame hapless

Muff Potter for the crime, Huck and Tom assume that Injun Joe will either be

caught or will escape. They are understandably afraid of what these wicked men

might do to them if they find out that the boys were present at the scene of the

crime. As we later see, however, even after Potter is falsely accused and arrested,

Tom and Huck are unable to overcome their fears and tell the authorities what

they have seen. Instead, their belief in superstition, their adherence to the blood

oath, and their assumption that God will strike down Injun Joe for wickedly lying

guide their actions. Even though the boys fear Injun Joe, they also fear

superstition and, ultimately, God or a higher force that they hope will cancel out

the more immediate threat from the murderous Injun Joe.

“Now it’s all done, Becky. And always after this, you know, you ain’t ever

to love anybody but me, never and forever. Will you?

No, I’ll never love anybody but you, Tom, and I’ll never marry anybody

but you, and you ain’t to ever marry anybody but me, either.”

(Twain, 58)

Tom’s affair with Becky Tatcher is somewhat funny but purely innocent.

He gets attracted at the first sight itself. Then he tries to get near her by doing
mischievous things. Tom arrives late, and the schoolmaster demands an

explanation. Tom notices an open seat on the girls’ side of the room, next to

Becky Thatcher. He decides to get in trouble on purpose, knowing that he will be

sent to sit with the girls as punishment. He boldly declares, ‘I stopped to talk with

Huckleberry Finn!’ The horrified teacher whips Tom and sends him to the seat

next to Becky. Tom offers Becky a peach and tries to interest her by drawing a

picture on his slate. Becky initially shies from Tom’s attentions, but she soon

warms to him and promises to stay at school with him during lunch. Becky and

Tom introduce themselves, and Tom scrawls “I love you” on his slate. At this

point, the teacher collars Tom and drags him back to the boys’ side of the room.

In the next day, during lunch, Tom and Becky sit in the empty schoolroom

together, and Tom persuades her to “get engaged” to him—an agreement they

render solemn by saying “I love you” and kissing. Tom begins talking excitedly

about how much he enjoys being engaged and accidentally reveals that he was

previously engaged to Amy Lawrence. Becky begins to cry and says that Tom

must still love Amy. Tom denies it, swearing that he loves only Becky, but she

cries harder and refuses to accept the brass andiron knob he offers her as a token

of his affection. When Tom marches out, Becky realizes that he won’t return that

day and becomes even more upset.

 “Oh, they have just bully time- take ships, and burns them, and get the

money and burry it in awful places in their island where there’s ghosts and

things to watch it, and kill everybody in the ships- make ‘em walk a plank.

And they carry the women to the island, said Joe; they don’t kill the

women.”

(Twain, 98)

Tom decides to become a pirate when his heart gets injured because of his

love towards Becky, glimpses of this can be seen in chapters 7, 12, 13. Chapter

12 discusses the illness of Becky. Tom seems to be very upset without her. When

she arrives the next day, Becky totally avoids tom. Tom was totally heartbroken

and later decides to become a pirate with Huck and Joe Harper. As in Chapter 8,

Becky’s rejection turns Tom to thoughts of piracy. Twain mocks the convention

in adult romances that unrequited love drives men to desperate acts. Only Huck,

who joins Joe Harper and Tom as they act on Tom’s pirate fantasy, adds an

authentic outlaw element to the adventure. That night, the three boys take a raft

and pole their way to the island, calling out meaningless nautical commands to

one another as they go. At about two in the morning they arrive on the island,

build a fire, and eat some bacon that Joe has stolen for them. For the rest of the

night they sit around and discuss pirate conduct. Eventually, however, they think

about the meat they stole and reflect on the shamefulness of their petty crime—
after all, the Bible explicitly forbids stealing. They decide that ‘their piracies

should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing’ and fall asleep.

The boys’ trip to the island and their plans for a pirate career demonstrate

their imaginative energy and their innocence. Through several exchanges, the

three reveal that they know very little about what being a pirate actually entails.

The children’s books they have read furnish their entire conception of an outlaw’s

life. Tom’s remarks about pirates that ‘they have just a bully time … [they] take

ships, and burn them, and get the money and bury it in awful places [but] they

don’t kill the women they’re too noble’ demonstrate the degree to which Tom

idealizes these figures. Furthermore, the boys’ remorse over the stolen bacon an

actual, and comparatively small, offense shows that they don’t see the storybook

misdeeds they venerate as actual sins or punishable offenses. In their shame at

having stolen the bacon, they defer to the Ten Commandments and to their own

consciences, irrationally deciding that such mean behavior is unworthy of their

idealized image of a pirate. Up to this moment, we have seen Tom maturing

mentally, as he dreams up scheme after scheme. He has matured through his eye-

opening experiences, such as his witness of Dr. Robinson’s murder, and he has

matured emotionally, as he falls for and is rejected by Becky Thatcher. Tom’s

rejection of sinful behavior, however, marks the first instance of his moral

maturation. He has the capacity to memorize and imagine a whole new world of
pirates on the high seas, but now we see that he understands right versus wrong

as well.

Tom and Joe’s desire to smoke a pipe reveals that forbidden activities

fascinate Tom and his comrades for the prestige that such activities bring them.

Whether in fights, in front of girls, or in the classroom, Tom and his friends are

constantly showing off. Such performances are critical parts of Tom’s boyhood,

because they earn him the respect of his peers and liven up the regular routines

of small-town life. It is clear that he and Joe want to learn how to smoke so that

they will appear special in the eyes of their friends, not because they expect to

enjoy the activity. Tom declares, “I’ll come up to you and say, ‘Joe, got a pipe? I

want a smoke.’ . . . And then you’ll out with the pipes . . . and then just see ‘em

look.” Indeed, the phrase “just see ‘em look” captures the motivation behind

many of Tom’s activities. This quotation reveals also that Tom is not only a

perpetual performer but also a director. As with his funeral, Tom has planned the

scene where his friends see him smoke. He seems to relish getting his actors—

whether the neighborhood children whom he cons into whitewashing his fence or

the pinch-bug he unleashes on the poodle—to perform the parts he has written

for them. Even when Joe and Huck rebel against Tom’s authority, wanting to

return home in Chapter 16, Tom manages to regain control by sharing his brilliant

idea to return triumphantly at their own funeral. His successful persuasion of the
boys proves, once again, his understanding of psychology. Tom knows that Huck

and Joe too are curious about how they will be missed.

In chapter 19, Aunt Polly has learned from Mrs. Harper that Tom’s dream

was a fake and that he came home one night and spied on them. Aunt Polly scolds

him for making her look like a fool in front of Mrs. Harper and then asks why he

came home but still did nothing to relieve everyone’s sorrow. Tom replies that he

was going to leave a message for her, but he was afraid it would spoil the surprise,

so he left it in his pocket. She sends him back to school and goes to look in the

jacket that he wore to Jackson’s Island, resolving not to be angry if the message

is not there. When she finds it, she breaks down in tears and says, ‘I could forgive

the boy, now, if he’d committed a million sins!’ Once Tom realizes the damage

he has done, he feels remorse for the second time in the novel, which indicates

that his moral growth is continuing. He feels genuine affection for Aunt Polly and

wants to secure her approval. His manipulation of her seems to happen almost

instinctively, as he gets carried away by his own flights of fancy.

‘Dark and tempestuous was the night. Around the thrones on high not a

single star quivered; but the deep intonations of the heavy thunder

constantly vibrated upon the ear; whilst the terrific lightening reveled in

angry mood through the cloudy chambers of heaven, seeming to scorn the

power exerted over its terrors by the illustrious Franklin! Even the
 boisterous winds unanimously came forth from the mystic homes, and

blustered about as if to enchants by their aid the wilderness of the scene.’

(Twain, 150)

In Chapter 22, Twain again pokes fun at the fickleness of the

townspeople’s religious belief. When a revival sweeps town, all the boys “get

religion,” but they go back to their old ways within a few weeks. Tom’s

understanding of God evolves out of his superstitious way of viewing the world—

when a thunderstorm strikes, he believes that God has aimed it at him as a

personal punishment. Tom’s decision to testify at Muff Potter’s trial marks an

important moment in his process of maturation from childhood to adulthood. His

fear for his physical safety and his superstitious unwillingness to go back on his

blood oath with Joe Harper are what kept him from doing the right thing. Both

are sentiments associated with childhood. While Twain does not give us a direct

depiction of Tom’s internal moral crisis, he builds an atmosphere of increasing

anxiety and indicates that Tom’s silence may have serious implications for the

wrongly accused Muff Potter. When Tom eventually changes his priorities and

acts out of concern for Muff instead of out of concern for himself, he conquers

his fear and achieves a greater level of maturity.

The cave scene (chapter 31-32) can be seen as a miniature version of Tom’s

entire journey toward maturity. Tom’s immaturity and his lack of foresight lead
him and Becky to stay away from the others for too long and to forget to make

marks on the walls so that they can find their way back to the entrance. Once they

are lost, however, Tom rises to the occasion. He assumes responsibility for his

mistakes, behaves generously toward Becky, and takes practical measures like

saving candles and finding a spring to sit by once the candles are nearly gone.

Tom takes the initiative to explore the side passages around the spring, while

Becky, who is less rugged, sleeps or lies in a daze. Eventually, Tom’s persistence

and continued resourcefulness lead him and Becky out of the cave. As Tom

matures, his adaptability develops, along with his willingness to accept his own

mistakes.

There is a note of sadness in Twain’s concluding statement that Tom’s

story will soon become “the history of a man.” The woods and fields around St.

Petersburg, where Tom plays Robin Hood, pirates, and Indians, have given way

to the world of money invested at interest. The freedom of childhood, represented

by Huck, has been absorbed by the adult order. The novel, which mixes nostalgia

for the carefree days of youth with illuminating criticism of adult society, cannot

but regret the conclusion of childhood, even while recognizing as Tom tries to

enable Huck to recognize the importance of moving toward maturity and

sophistication.
 CHAPTER 2

LOSS OF INNOCENCE

“Innocence is a kind of insanity”

-Graham Greene

There are no other words to explain the innocence in William Golding’s

Lord of the Flies. It dramatizes the conflict between the civilizing instinct and the

barbarizing instinct that exist in all human beings. The artistic choices Golding

makes in the novel are designed to emphasize the struggle between the ordering

elements of society, which include morality, law, and culture, and the chaotic

elements of humanity’s savage animal instincts, which include anarchy,

bloodlust, the desire for power, amorality, selfishness, and violence. Over the

course of the novel, Golding portrays the rise and swift fall of an isolated,
makeshift civilization, which is torn to pieces by the savage instincts of those who

compose it. School children are turning into savages, because there are no adults

to control them. This is because the sudden change of surroundings and the role

of fate. The English boys who lived with all the luxuries are suddenly thrown into

nothingness in that island. So they get total freedom from the adults. The innocent

kids don’t know how to react to a situation like this. They act according to their

intelligence and thoughts, which may be insanity to our eyes.

Freud came to see personality as having three aspects, which work together

to produce all of our complex behaviours: the Id and Ego and the Superego. All

three components need to be well-balanced in order to have good amount of

psychological energy available and to have reasonable mental health.

However, the ego has a difficult time dealing with the competing demands

of the superego and the Id. According to the psychoanalytic view, the

psychological conflict is an intrinsic and pervasive part of human experience. The

conflict between the Id and the superego, negotiated by the ego, is one of the

fundamental psychological battles all people face. The way in which a person

characteristically resolves the instant gratification v/s the longer term reward

dilemma in many ways comes to reflect on their “character”.

 THE ID (“It”): functions in the irrational and emotional part of the mind.

At birth a baby’s mind is all Id-want want want. The Id is the primitive

mind. It contains all the basic needs and feelings. It is the source of libido
 (psychic energy). And it has only one rule=>the “pleasure principle”; “I

want it and I want it all now”. In transactional analysis, Id equates to

“Child”. Id too strong=bound up in self gratification and uncaring to

others.

 THE EGO (“I”): functions with the rational part of the mind. The ego

develops out of growing awareness that you can’t always get want you

want. The ego relates to the real world and operates via “reality principle”.

The ego realizes the need for compromise and negotiates between the id

and superego. The ego’s job is to get the id’s pleasures but to be reasonable

and bear the long-term consequences in mind. The ego denies both instant

gratification and pious delaying of gratification. The term ego- strength is

the term used to refer to how well the ego cops with these conflicting

forces. To undertake its work of planning, think9ing and controlling the id,

the ego uses some of the id’s libidinal energy. The transactional analysis

ego equates to “Adults”. Ego too strong=extremely rational and efficient,

but cold, boring and distant.

 THE SUPEREGO (“Over-I”): the superego is the last part of the mind to

develop. It might be called the mortal part of the mind. The superego

becomes an embodiment of parental and societal values. Its stores and

enforces rules. It constantly strives for perfection, even though this

perfection ideal may be quiet far from reality or responsibility. Its power
 to enforce rules comes from its ability to create anxiety.

 The superego has two subsystems: Ego Ideal and conscience. The ego ideal

provides rules for good behavior, and standards of excellence towards

which the ego must strive. The ego ideal is basically what the child’s

parents approve of or value. The conscience is the rules about what

constitutes bad behavior. The conscience is basically all those things that

the child feels mum or dad will disapprove of or punish.

Superego too strong=feels guilty all the time, may even have an

insufferable saintly personality.

In Chapter 1, the boys, still unsure of how to behave with no adult presence

overseeing them, largely stick to the learned behaviors of civilization and order.

They attempt to re-create the structures of society on their deserted island: they

elect a leader, establish a division of labor, and set about systematically exploring

the island. But even at this early stage, we see the danger that the boys’ innate

instincts pose to their civilization: the boys cruelly taunt Piggy, and Jack displays

a ferocious desire to be elected as the group’s leader.

Novel talks about kids at the age of six to twelve, pre adolescent stages of

humans. All the kids gather in a group which we can call as “Peer Group”. Peer

groups (friends group) can help individuals form their own identity. Identity

formation is a developmental process where a person acquires a sense of self. One

of the major factors that influence the formation of a person’s identity is his or

her peers. Studies have showed peers provide normative regulation, and they

provide a staging ground for the practice of social behaviors. This allows

individuals to experiment with roles and discover their identities. The identity

formation process is an important role in an individual’s development. Erik

Erikson emphasized the importance of identity formation, and he illustrated the

steps one takes in developing his or her sense of self. He believed this process

occurs throughout one's entire life. Several studies have shown that peer groups

are powerful agents of risk behaviors in adolescence. Adolescents typically

replace family with peers regarding social and leisure activities, and many

problematic behaviors occur in the context of these groups. Participants

completed a self-report measure of identity commitment, which explores values,

beliefs, and aspirations, as well as a self-report that measures perceived peer

group pressure and control. Both peer group pressure and control were positively

related to risky behaviors. However, adolescents who were more committed to a

personal identity had lower rates of risk behaviors. Overall, this study shows us

that adolescent identity development may help prevent negative effects of peer

pressure in high-risk adolescents.

In Lord of the Flies, the groups Littleuns and Hunter’s group are called as

“Cliques”. Cliques are small groups typically defined by common interests or by

friendship. Cliques typically have 2-12 members and tend to be formed by age,
gender, race, and social class. Clique members are usually the same in terms of

academics and risk behaviors. Cliques can serve as an agent of socialization and

social control. Being part of a clique can be advantageous since it may provide a

sense of autonomy, a secure social environment, and overall well-being.

‘Better Piggy than Fatty,’ he said at last, with the directness of genuine

leadership, and anyway, I’m sorry if you feel like that. Now go back, Piggy,

and take the names. That’s your job. So long.

(Golding, 22)

The innocence of the kids is revealed in this incident. They don’t know the

manners and they make fun of Piggy’s appearances and call him “fatty”. They

are totally unaware that they are insulting and hurting Piggy mentally by poling

fun at him.

“The small boy twisted further into himself.

‘Tell us about the snake thing.’

‘Now he says it was a beastie.’

‘Beastie?’

‘A snake thing. Ever so big. He saw it.’

‘Where?’
 ‘In the woods.’”

(Golding, 35)

This is the first scene that the supernatural power or the beast is introduced

into the novel. Till the last chapter the beast attacks the innocent kids’ mind. The

kids blindly believe in that fake creature and are always scared of it. In chapter 3

Ralph also worries about the smaller children, many of whom have nightmares

and are unable to sleep. He tells Jack about his concerns, but Jack, still trying to

think of ways to kill a pig, is not interested in Ralph’s problems. In chapter 4, we

can see the littluns, who spend most of their days eating fruit and playing with

one another, are particularly troubled by visions and bad dreams. They continue

to talk about the “beastie” and fear that a monster hunts in the darkness. The large

amount of fruit that they eat causes them to suffer from diarrhea and stomach

ailments. In chapter 5, the boys’ fear of the beast becomes an increasingly

important aspect of their lives, especially at night, from the moment the first

littlun claims to have seen a snake-monster in Chapter 2. In this chapter, the fear

of the beast finally explodes, ruining Ralph’s attempt to restore order to the island

and precipitating the final split between Ralph and Jack. At this point, it remains

uncertain whether or not the beast actually exists. In any case, the beast serves as

one of the most important symbols in the novel, representing both the terror and

the allure of the primordial desires for violence, power, and savagery that lurk

within every human soul. In keeping with the overall allegorical nature of Lord
of the Flies, the beast can be interpreted in a number of different lights. In a

religious reading, for instance, the beast recalls the devil; in a Freudian reading,

it can represent the id, the instinctual urges and desires of the human unconscious

mind. However we interpret the beast, the littlun’s idea of the monster rising from

the sea terrifies the boys because it represents the beast’s emergence from their

own unconscious minds. As Simon realizes later in the novel, the beast is not

necessarily something that exists outside in the jungle. Rather, it already exists

inside each boy’s mind and soul, the capacity for savagery and evil that slowly

overwhelms them.

As the idea of the beast increasingly fills the boys with dread, Jack and the

hunters manipulate the boys’ fear of the beast to their own advantage. Jack

continues to hint that the beast exists when he knows that it probably does not a

manipulation that leaves the rest of the group fearful and more willing to cede

power to Jack and his hunters, more willing to overlook barbarism on Jack’s part

for the sake of maintaining the “safety” of the group. In this way, the beast

indirectly becomes one of Jack’s primary sources of power. At the same time,

Jack effectively enables the boys themselves to act as the beast to express the

instinct for savagery that civilization has previously held in check. Because that

instinct is natural and present within each human being, Golding asserts that we

are all capable of becoming the beast.

 In chapter 10, we can see Jack exploiting the innocence of the poor kids to

the maximum. All of them are scared of the Beast, Jack, for his part, has become

an expert in using the boys’ fear of the beast to enhance his own power. He claims

that Simon really was the beast, implying that the boys have a better grasp of the

truth in their frenzied bloodlust than in their calmer moments of reflection. This

conclusion is not surprising coming from Jack, who seems almost addicted to that

state of bloodlust and frenzy. Jack’s ability to convince the other boys that the

state of bloodlust is a valid way of interacting with the world erodes their sense

of morality even further and enables Jack to manipulate them even more.

“There isn’t anyone to help you. Only me. And I’m the Beast. . . . Fancy

thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! . . . You knew,

didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s

no go? Why things are the way they are?”

(Golding, 162)

The Lord of the Flies speaks these lines to Simon in Chapter 8, during

Simon’s vision in the glade. These words confirm Simon’s speculation in Chapter

5 that perhaps the beast is only the boys themselves. This idea of the evil on the

island being within the boys is central to the novel’s exploration of innate human

savagery. The Lord of the Flies identifies itself as the beast and acknowledges to

Simon that it exists within all human beings: “You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of

you?” The creature’s grotesque language and bizarre appropriation of the boys’
slang (“I’m the reason why it’s no go”) makes the creature appear even more

hideous and devilish, for he taunts Simon with the same colloquial, familiar

language the boys use themselves. Simon, startled by his discovery, tries to

convey it to the rest of the boys, but the evil and savagery within them boils to

the surface, as they mistake him for the beast itself, set upon him, and kills him.

The most innocent character in the novel is Simon. He is kind and generous

nature can be seen through his actions in this chapter 3. He helps Ralph build the

huts when the other boys would rather play, indicating his helpfulness, discipline,

and dedication to the common good. Simon helps the littluns reach a high branch

of fruit, indicating his kindness and sympathy—a sharp contrast to many of the

older boys, who would rather torment the littluns than help them. When Simon

sits alone in the jungle glade marveling at the beauty of nature, we see that he

feels a basic connection with the natural world. On the whole, Simon seems to

have a basic goodness and kindness that comes from within him and is tied to his

connection with nature. All the other boys, meanwhile, seem to have inherited

their ideas of goodness and morality from the external forces of civilization, so

that the longer they are away from human society, the more their moral sense

erodes. In this regard, Simon emerges as an important figure to contrast with

Ralph and Jack. Where Ralph represents the orderly forces of civilization and

Jack the primal, instinctual urges that react against such order, Simon represents

a third quality—a kind of goodness that is natural or innate rather than taught by
human society. In this way, Simon, who cannot be categorized with the other

boys, complicates the symbolic structure of Lord of the Flies.

Simon’s confrontation with the Lord of the Flies-the sow’s head impaled

on a stake in the forest glade is arguably the most important scene in the novel,

and one that has attracted the most attention from critics. Some critics have

interpreted the scene as a retelling of Jesus’ confrontation with Satan during his

forty days in the wilderness, a story originally told in the Gospels of the New

Testament. Indeed, many critics have described Simon as a Christ figure, for he

has a mystical connection to the environment, possesses a saintly and selfless

disposition, and meets a tragic and sacrificial death. Others tie the scene into a

larger Freudian reading of Lord of the Flies, claiming that its symbols correspond

exactly to the elements of the Freudian unconscious (with Jack as the id, Ralph

as the ego, and Piggy as the superego). Lord of the Flies may indeed support these

and a number of other readings, not necessarily at the exclusion of one another.

Indeed, many differences between Simon and Jesus complicate the

comparison between the two and prevent us from seeing Simon as a

straightforward Christ figure. Simon, unlike Jesus, is not a supernatural being,

and none of the boys could possibly find salvation from the Lord of the Flies

through faith in Simon. Rather, Simon’s terror and fainting spell indicate the

horrific, persuasive power of the instinct for chaos and savagery that the Lord of

the Flies represents. Simon has a deep human insight in the glade, for he realizes
that it is not a real, physical beast that inspires the hunters’ behavior but rather

the barbaric instinct that lies deep within each of them. Fearing that this instinct

lies embedded within him as well, Simon seems to hear the Lord of the Flies

speaking with him, threatening him with what he fears the most. Unable to stand

the sight any longer, Simon collapses into a very human faint.

In all, Simon is a complex figure who does not fit neatly into the matrix

framed by Jack at the one end and Ralph at the other. Simon is kindhearted and

firmly on the side of order and civilization, but he is also intrigued by the idea of

the beast and feels a deep connection with nature and the wilderness on the island.

Whereas Jack and Roger connect with the wilderness on a level that plunges them

into primal lust and violence, Simon finds it a source of mystical comfort and joy.

Simon’s closeness with nature and his unwaveringly kind nature throughout the

novel make him the only character who does not feel morality as an artificial

imposition of society. Instead, we sense that Simon’s morality and goodness are

a way of life that proceeds directly and easily from nature. Lord of the Flies is

deeply preoccupied with the problem of fundamental, natural human evil—amid

which Simon is the sole figure of fundamental, natural good. In a wholly

nonreligious way, Simon complicates the philosophical statement the novel

makes about human beings, for he represents a completely separate alternative to

the spectrum between civilization and savagery of which Ralph and Jack are a
part. In the end, Simon is both natural and good in a world where such a

combination seems impossible.

The Concrete Operations Stage was Piaget's third stage of cognitive

development in children. This stage was believed to have affected children aged

between seven and eleven to twelve years old. During this stage, the thought

process becomes more rational, mature and 'adult like', or more 'operational',

although this process most often continues well into the teenage years. The

process is divided by Piaget into two stages, the Concrete Operations, and the

Formal Operations stage, which is normally undergone by adolescents. In the

Concrete Operational stage, the child has the ability to develop logical thought

about an object, if they are able to manipulate it. By comparison, however, in the

Formal Operations stage, the thoughts are able to be manipulated and the presence

of the object is not necessary for the thought to take place. Belief in animism and

ego centric thought tends to decline during the Concrete Operational stage,

although, remnants of this way of thinking are often found in adults.

Piaget claims that before the beginning of this stage, children's ideas about

different objects, are formed and dominated by the appearance of the object. For

example, there appears to be more blocks when they are spread out, than when

they are in a small pile. During the Concrete Operational Stage, children

gradually develop the ability to 'conserve', or learn that objects are not always the

way that they appear to be. This occurs when children are able to take in many
different aspects of an object, simply through looking at it. Children are able to

begin to imagine different scenarios, or 'what if' something was to happen. This

is because they now have more 'operational' thought. Children are generally first

able to conserve ideas about objects with which they are most comfortable. Once

children have learnt to conserve, they learn about 'reversibility'. This means that

they learn that if things are changed, they will still be the same as they used to be.

For example, they learn that if they spread out the pile of blocks, there are still as

many there as before, even though it looks different!

In a sense, Simon’s murder is an almost inevitable outcome of his

encounter with the Lord of the Flies in Chapter 8. During the confrontation in the

previous chapter, the Lord of the Flies foreshadows Simon’s death by promising

to have some “fun” with him. Although Simon’s vision teaches him that the beast

exists inside all human beings, his confrontation with the beast is not complete

until he comes face-to-face with the beast that exists within the other boys.

Indeed, when the boys kill Simon, they are acting on the savage instinct that the

beast represents. Additionally, the manner of Simon’s death continues the

parallels between Simon and Jesus: both die sacrificial deaths after learning

profound truths about human morality. But Simon’s death differs from Jesus’ in

ways that complicate the idea that Simon is simply a Christ figure. Although Jesus

and Simon both die sacrificial deaths, Jesus was killed for his beliefs, whereas

Simon is killed because of the other boys’ delusions. Jesus died after conveying
his message to the world, whereas Simon dies before he is able to speak to the

boys. In the biblical tradition, Jesus dies to alleviate the burden of mankind’s sin;

Simon’s death, on the other hand, simply intensifies the burden of sin pressing

down upon the island. According to the Bible, Jesus’ death shows others the way

to salvation; Simon’s death exemplifies the power of evil within the human soul.

Education was an important tool of the colonizer by which he could ensure

ideological control over the mind of the child, and by which he could finally take

over the psyche of his colonized subject. The weapon of education had a far-

reaching effect on the malleable mind of the child. For instance, the sweeping

effect of the 1835-Minute of Macauley, spells the postcolonial continuation of

colonization in the Indian sub-continent. It is, in part, because of colonial

education those neo-colonialism rules even years after independence in Africa,

the West Indies and the Indian sub continent. In the context of this persistence of

colonial education, the child in all his vulnerabilities particularly continues to be

the special focus of the authoritarian personality.

The theme, ‘Loss of innocence’ represents how the boys are losing

innocence when it comes to making a bad decision and doing something risky.

One of the major themes in the novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, is

‘loss of innocence’ that teaches readers how people can change when it comes to

realizing what you are capable of. Thesis statement when the young boys began

to realize that there are no real rules or adults, it makes them more curious with
what they can do. Throwing rocks at the Littluns, but missing on purpose because

they know in real life, they would get in trouble with adults around. But as they

get more comfortable in their environment, they begin to meaningfully aim the

rocks closer to the boys. Loss of innocence contributes when the boys become

aware of what they're capable of and what can be done. The amount power and

mind changing abilities also comes from the loss of innocence. The boys become

more laid back and creative with their acts. They make their own rules and

decisions. Simon's murder is an example of the ‘loss of innocence’ in the boys.

The boys became more controlling with the events. When Piggy realized what

had happened with Simon; he was very upset about the situation. When Jack and

his group fought jumped Ralph and his group for Piggy's glasses is an example

of their violent capabilities. This shows how much of Jack and his group's

maturity and theory changed. They're no longer sweet, innocent, and

inexperienced boys, they're being violent while causing chaos. The loss of

innocence leads to the boys committing criminal acts and believing they know

what they're doing. At the beginning of the book, everyone was their own person

until things starting changing rapidly. From the start Jack wanted to be the leader

but everyone agreed Ralph should. After some time, Jack became more of an

argumentative character towards Ralph. He constantly disagreed with Ralph and

got into arguments a lot. Although, Ralph was leader, Ralph was a pretty fair

person and Jack's disagreements got irritating. The power that Ralph had irritated

Jack, therefore; Jack wanted to have a re-election for leader. When Ralph won,
Jack decided to stop following Ralph's rules and decided to go to Castle along

with all the hunters that followed. After the groups split up, Jack basically

manipulated and treated the boys unfairly in his group. Jack manipulated his

group into thinking murder was okay, Simon was the beast, and that Ralph is a

threat towards them. Although Jack took most of the group and basically excluded

Ralph, Ralph knew that in order to be rescued, it would be the best decision to

stay on the beach. Jack wasn't exactly thinking of the outcome with his decisions.

Jack's goal all along was to get power and control everything. His theory made

him uncivilized in the end. Jack became a savage like person who controlled,

disrespected, and manipulated his group. Rodger also became a lot like Jack. He

killed Piggy to basically show his savageness. In the long run, Jack was the main

character that caused a lot of problems and manipulation. Throughout the book,

the boys are scared but are continually becoming brave. Because the boys have

no rules and no supervision, they push and push until something bad happens.

They have no discipline and they continuously boss the Littluns around. When

Jack realizes that they're no adults or real rules, he takes advantage of it. He

realizes that he doesn't have to take responsibility for his actions because his in

control. He killed Simon and got away with it. With that said, he's completely lost

innocence and gained selfishness. When Ralph and Piggy got attacked by Jack

and his group, it really showed how the boys will do anything to get what they

want. The violence that happened was unnecessary and evil. Jack's plan to get

Piggy's glasses was not something a young boy should plan. In addition, the
existence of civilization allows man to remain innocent; therefore when the

characters lost their innocence, the civilization was gone or corrupt. One example

of the loss of innocence would be when Jack was unable to stab the pig during

the hunt. At that moment, he lost his innocence which enabled him to kill without

a recollection of civilization. Another example of the loss of innocence was when

Roger was throwing stones and rocks at the other children below him. Roger was

unable to actually hit them purposely because he still had his innocence, but this

moment was the beginning of his inability of understanding human nature. The

motivation of the violence shows so much disrespect toward everyone. It’s very

sad how their civilization turned into such savageness. These boys really had to

step up their braveness in order to survive. They had to take chances, take

responsibility, and provide protection for themselves. In order to do that, they had

to hunt and put themselves in a situation that is very dangerous. They killed a pig

and chopped its head off to represent the Lord of the Flies. At such a young age,

it’s shocking to see what these boys did. This book involves lots of violence,

criminal acts, maturity changes, savageness, civilization, and braveness. The

characters in this book all become different. Some become evil and some become

smart, civilized, and brave and some become dead. This book represents how

much can change when they're no laws, no adults, and only young boys. All these

boys had lost their innocence while making uncertain decisions and doing risky

things.
 ‘The loss of innocence’ is evident in most characters of The Lord of the

Flies. But first of all this means that this characters at a time they were innocent,

this can be seen in the first chapters of the of the book when it is said that this

children, Ralph and the others, were good sons and daughters , that they studied

in a private school ,they liked to play that they were part of the high society

meaning that they had money , as part of the high society in England they were

children that were teach with good manners for example, to drink a cup of coffee

in the afternoon. All of this meant that they were very educated children that will

always do the correct thing and that they would not hurt anyone but, when the

accident with the plain occur that leads them to crush within a virgin island this

changed in a progressive a notorious way as the time passed by because this

savagery was needed to survive within the islands there were no easy things to

get as in the civilization were they only had to ask for the things to the parents as

most children an in contrast in the island they were by themselves trying to

survive so they had to hunt animal to eat making a huge contrast in the behavior

they had in the civilization and the behavior they had to have in the island, as the

children that were portrayed swimming in the lagoon in Chapter 3 that when

crushed in the island they only wanted to be rescue that turned The painted

savages in Chapter 12 who have hunted, tortured, and killed animals and human

beings and that now they do not want to be rescued anymore. The author, William

Golding, as a man that hated war is trying to show with this that civilization can’t

delete the evil nature of the human being that it is shown in the worst moments
of the life of the man and that this civilization can only hide and control this evil

side that all man have.

The progression of innocence degradation can be seen in the spar between

Jack and Ralph appears to be constantly stirring. It occurs in the begging of the

novel with the election of Ralph as chief all the way to the hunting of pigs. It

seems that all Jack wants to do is hunt and kill even before they have any shelter

to protect them from the elements. For example in chapter 3 it was said by Jack,

"We want meat". Jack says this on more than one occasion. It is also evident that

the boys are becoming more and more savage. For example in chapter eight

during the successful hunt of a pig Jack says, "Pick up the pig.”, "This head is for

the beast" referring to the sows head. The head of the pig was impaled upon a

spear through the ground as an offering for the beast. Towards the end of the

novel it has become self-evident that the innocence of the boys has been

completely lost. It at one point had gotten so bad that instead of hunting for food

for the necessity of food, human beings were killed. For example, in chapter 11 a

young boy named Roger, a sadist, rolled a boulder down a hill during a feud and

killed piggy. Another example of loss of innocence can be provided in chapter 10

where Simon goes to tell the boys of the "real" beast while the boys are in a chant

screaming, "Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill His Blood!." Simon is stabbed

with a spear and dies. Society is a key element lacking in The Lord of the Flies

causing the new erratic behavior among the boys.

 The boys in lord of the flies were unable to retain the much-needed

innocence to preserve peace amongst the boys. The ideal supervision and stability

of the "grown-up" world that was lacking caused the instability among the boys

and the epitome of the downfall of innocence of mankind at its most primitive

state with a huge contrast of what the children were before and what they are now,

as when Ralph is first introduced, he is acting like a child, splashing in the water,

mocking Piggy, and laughing. He tells Piggy that he is certain that his father, a

naval commander, will rescue him, a conviction that the reader understands as

the wishful thinking of a little boy. Ralph repeats his belief in their rescue

throughout the novel, shifting his hope that his own father will discover them to

the far more realistic premise that a passing ship will be attracted by the signal

fire on the island. By the end of the novel, he has lost hope in the boys' rescue

altogether. The progression of Ralph's character from idealism to pessimistic

realism expresses the extent to which life on the island has eradicated his

childhood.

There is a lot of symbolism that represents the loss of innocence as in the

island is coded in the early chapters as a kind of paradise, with idyllic scenery,

fresh fruit, and glorious weather. Yet, as in the Biblical Eden, the temptation

toward corruption is present: the younger boys fear a "snake-thing." The "snake-

thing" is the earliest incarnation of the "beast" that, eventually, will provoke

paranoia and division among the group. It also explicitly recalls the snake from
the Garden of Eden, the embodiment of Satan who causes Adam and Eve's fall

from grace. The boys' increasing belief in the beast indicates their gradual loss of

innocence, a descent that culminates in tragedy. We may also note that the

landscape of the island itself shifts from an edenic space to a hellish one, as

marked by Ralph's observation of the ocean tide as an impenetrable wall, and by

the storm that follows Simon's murder.

Although the lack of moral during their actions is a bad thing , this has pros

and cons the pros is that this help them to survive in the island since there is no

place to be a educated and a formal man because if you are this way there you

will get killed an eat by a wild animal or by other things so in a way here applies

the "survival of the fittest" as a principal law to survive, the advantage of the lack

of moral in that place is that they will not feel guilty for the killings of animals or

people since you need to eat but on the same side the cons of this is that they will

lose all social skills, and civilized ways they have learn trough their lives, in case

they are rescued and bring back to the city this will not permit them to have a

normal live there as they adapted all to the island. So in way this lack of moral

helps them but at the same time it puts them on danger.

In conclusion the ‘loss of innocence’ is an evident theme trough the novel

The Lord of the Flies of William Golding that is shown through this characters in

an progressive way as the lack of moral that brings down the innocence makes

them do horrible things as cannibalism and other things that are worst as the time
passes, but aside from the fact that this brings their moral down, this have

advantages that helps them to survive in this chaotic situation full of danger. With

this the author William Golding tries to show that no matter who you are or what

your education you have received because when people are in a difficult moment

of their lives ,their evil side appears losing all the civilized way of behaving as

this part is always present in all human people despite their social-economic class

, this idea of the human society that the author has is the result of his experiences

of war as he presented killing and other horrible things through this stage of his

life changing his way of seeing things into a pessimistic view of people as he

probably did in war things that he is not proud of because this situation makes

people change his way of thinking and do things that they would not normally do.
 CONCLUSION

“When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence

leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the

future is the day we leave our childhood behind.”

-Patrick Rothfuss

When childhood innocence of Tom Sawyer leads to the comprehending

maturity of adulthood in Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the different conscious

levels of human psyche transcend to and fro in the life of, characters of Lord of

the Flies, egocentric

In both the novels there is loss of innocence. In Adventures of Tom Sawyer,

Tom gains a lot of experienced through his adventures. He gets more matured

when the novel moves on. In Lord of the Flies, children are becoming savages

and blood lust destroys their innocence totally in a certain stage. They forget

about the society norms because of the total freedom that they enjoy in that island.

They become so cruel and even kill their own colleagues and torture the little

ones.

In Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the hero Tom is moving from innocence to

experience. He doesn’t want to grow up; he wants to roam in the streets, causing

troubles to others and himself. When a child is growing up, he is gaining more
experiences, whether they want it or not, no choice. At the starting of the novel

the children’s are so immature. Becoming pirates or robber runs in Tom’s mind.

His innocent mind shows the fun of becoming someone like them. Tom is

unaware that a pirate or a robber must do cruel things like stealing and killing

without any mercy, which will destroy the true happiness and innocence totally.

Here Tom is not at a point to see all these through his innocence eyes. It’s always

fun and game for him.

But reality is much different. They realize life is not just fun and games but

Tom thinks alike, just like other kids. An innocent child thinks that he or she can

always play games and never have to work. After the night in graveyard there is

a immediate change in Tom because of what he has experienced. The struggle

between right and wrong is present in the transition in adulthood.

In Lord of the Flies picturizes school children turning to savages. The peer

group influences every character in that novel. The death of Simon is the biggest

example of it. Even the good guys, Ralph and Piggy dance with the hunters group

forgetting everything. All of them are blinded to bloodlust and illusion takes over

them. They kill Simon thinking that he is the beast. With this ends the rest of

innate innocence from those children.

When they reach the island, there is no adult to control them, so the

dominant one acts as adults here, Ralph and Jack. This is explained by Erick
Erickson in his theory. The children at the adolescent stage change according to

the situation. This change is very fast and a serious challenge for them. The

character Ralph takes charge the safety of the small kids of that group. And Jack

takes charge on gathering meat and food items.

Golding portrays this loss of innocence as something that is done to the

children; rather, it results naturally from their increased openness to the innate

evil and savagery that has always existed within them. In the last scene of Lord

of the Flies, when the sailors come for the rescue, most of the children cry. These

tears can be interpreted as the return of innocence. Culture comes back to their

mind only when the kids see the sailors. They remember about the society once

they lived. This made their eyes filled with tears, they realize the mistakes and

feel guilty for the insane activities they did as savages.

The novel has lots of characters who show devilish nature. Some are smart,

some are civilized and some are brave. This represents how much children change

when there are no laws, no adults and only young boys. All of the boys lost their

innocence by making indecisive decisions and doing risky things in life. Thus

human life, from the childhood scenario itself shows traces of pure innocence

which makes their life meaningful there after transforming to adulthood maturity.
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