Lord of the Flies Irony essays

Lord of the Flies Irony essays I stayed up late searching through my novel last Wednesday night for examples of irony in Lord of the Flies, only to find out the next morning that our in class essay was about a confidant in the novel. This is an example of irony, or two contrasting ideas that fail to meet an expectation. In William Goldings Lord of the Flies, Golding applies situational and verbal irony as a means to show the reader on how the inner evil of the individual can significantly possess society with no regard to institution or structure. Golding uses symbolism to coincide with the theme of how the person rules the civilization and not how the civilization rules the person. Examples throughout the novel show how values are contrasted with what the author sees as an inner evil we all possess. One clear example of irony in the novel is when Jack, one of the savage boys on the island, is hesitant to kill a pig in the beginning while he is out exploring the island. I was going to, said Jack. He was ahead of them, and they could not see his face. I was choosing a place. Next time-! The reader looks back on this example after reading the novel and can see how ironic the transition of this characters morals have become. He starts out as Jack the English boy in a uniform from a civil society and ends up with a mask and an identity no one can distinguish as he became a savage. It is ironic that Jack did not kill the pig because of the unbearable blood, but by the end of the story he does not question the morality of murder. He wants to kill pigs, he wants to kill humans, and he does not flinch at these concepts. Jack and the other boys try to kill Ralph near the end of the story and in order to find him, they set the island on fire to smoke him out. It is ironic that in the conquest for destruction and murder of one, they manage to save Ralph an ...