Essay On Religious Allegory in Lord of The Flies

The reoccurring concepts of religion and allegory in Lord of the Flies by William Golding are by far the most important and essential parts of the book. Without viewing this book through a religious lens, you are missing the entirety of the focus of the author and what he’s trying to display. Sure, there are hints of survival and symbolism, but the makeup of the story proves that this is Golding’s take on why people are as they are and why humans are incapable of making a utopia.

Lord of the Flies established a central theme of religious connotation early in the book. As the boys arrive on the island it is an instant comparison to the Garden of Eden as displayed in the three main religious scriptures: “He picked his way up the scar, passed the great rock where Ralph had climbed on the first morning, then turned off to his right among the trees. He walked with an accustomed tread through the acres of fruit trees, where the least energetic could find an easy if unsatisfying meal” (Golding 77). The fruit tree in the biblical and qur’anic narratives are said to represent the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” and could also be compared to something as such in the island the British boys landed on as it said that the tree could be used for food from only someone least energetic and would make an unsatisfying meal, indicating that this tree isn’t something beneficial or good for them. In both of these situations, the tree is seen to be something for the “wrongdoers” and a work of the devil, not to be touched unless utter necessity. 

Throughout Golding’s piece there are other obvious hints at monotheistic scriptures whether it be, the revelation that Simon found out on the mountain, easily comparable to Muhammad (عَلَيْهِ ٱلسَّلَامُ) receiving revelations in 609 CE on Mount Hira or even Simon being shown as a messianic figure who was only trying to help, just to get slayed brutally by Jack’s companions, often compared to the biblical representation of how and why Jesus (عَلَيْهِ ٱلسَّلَامُ) died by trying to deliver the truth to mankind. 

Why do these examples of religious connotation matter? With these seemingly minuscule references to holy scripture, we can determine that Golding in Lord of the Flies is trying to use this island as a microcosm to represent the world in its entirety. We begin with a beautiful island comparable to that in the heavens. The book ends with the island in flames and a completely chaotic manhunt. This represents how humans, even preteens, in this case, can take something perfect and destroy it in the blink of an eye due to conflict, associations, or means for survival. The boys land on the island all spiffed up and neat, but by the end have returned to primitive ways with spears, face painting, and tribal togetherness. This displays that no matter what situation humans are in or what the world looks like around us; put a group of humans on an island and see how quickly they destroy any resemblance of conformity as compared to what they were previously adorned to. Humans will always be primitive regardless of how many years we stay civilized due to social expectations. 

The pig’s head is a very overlooked, but important, part of the religion and allegory view of the book, which in itself is crucial to grasp for any reader to make sense of a bigger picture outlook in the story. The pig’s head surrounded by swarms of flies seemingly talks to Simon, but before that he makes acute observations about it that give us a better understanding of what it represents in a religious connotation: “They were black and iridescent green and without number; and in front of Simon, the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned. At last, Simon gave up and looked back; saw the white teeth and dim eyes, the blood—and his gaze was held by that ancient, inescapable recognition” (Golding 138). This helps the readers visualize that the “Lord of the Flies” or the pig’s head, as previously mentioned, is filthy and something seemingly straight out of a horror film. By a lack of coincidence, “Lord of the Flies” is a direct translation to “Beelzebub”, another name for a satanic figure in the Bible. Since this pig head has such direct symbolism to something like the Devil, it could also represent everything wrong with the island, or the cause of everything going haywire. 

The “Lord of the Flies” only communicates with Simon in a dream-like state, comparable to a prophetic dream that has also been mentioned in holy scripture. This voice that Simon is hearing from the pig head could also show that we always have the Devil whispering to us to do something wrong and this was just a more descriptive way of showing Simon’s inner thoughts and conflicts. The “Lord of the Flies” figure represents two new aspects of the book, human nature, and symbolism, unlocked through the lens of religion and allegory, yet another reason it is the most substantial way to read Golding’s Lord of the Flies. 

Simon can be viewed as a figure sent from the empyrean to save the boys and get them rescued, with his always kind, helpful, and thoughtful motives. When Simon goes to the mountain to find the beast, just to find out it's just a dead parachutist whose body swaying back and forth makes a visual cue to be something like that of the beast the others are imagining. Simon then tries to deliver this message back to Jack, Ralph, Piggy, and the others. Upon desperately trying to communicate to them, he falls over the rocks and onto the beach only to be mauled to death by everyone thinking he’s the beast. Simon was the person with the truth about what the “beast” actually was, yet he was the same one to get mistaken for the beast, leading to his surprising and sudden death. This makes Simon’s story applicable to our world as well; a truthful messenger is often ridiculed, silenced, and sometimes killed by the rest with no remorse, while someone like Jack, a deceitful person with ill-intentions becomes known as a powerful figure with mass influence. 

Jack is a prime example of an “Anti-Christ”. As a growing figure of concern in the book, Jack resembles many of the “False Messiah’s” qualities and characteristics. In a biblical and qur’anic sense, the Anti-Christ is known to be a heavily deceitful liar, an outlier who takes over the world, and a “man of sin and destruction”. Jack, within a few chapters, completely overpowers the democracy that Ralph had tried to set up. The destruction of the conch symbolized a more official change in power from a peaceful democracy to a ruthless Monarchy where Piggy and Simon end up dying because of Jack’s commands. Simon, who was mentioned previously as a messianic figure, was the one slain by Jack and his crew. This a twist on the religious narrative where the true Messiah will kill the “Dajjal”, but it still worth mentioning as the author may have tried to make this a spin on a “what-if” scenario on what would happen if the False Messiah was in someway able to kill the real one. This led to mass anarchy and decay with Ralph fleeing for his life till the very end.

Without interpreting Lord of the Flies through a mindset focused on the religious connections and the microcosm that Golding places the reader in, you are doing yourself a disservice. The religious interconnection between events in the story and characters shows a whole new level of symbolism beyond the basic inferences made by most readers. Symbolism and human nature are both intertwined with the themes of religion and allegory. Religion, since the beginning of time, has always been the main way to explain human nature. Many concepts about human nature that we can derive from this book show that Golding is trying to signify and elucidate human nature through a means of religion, specifically biblical allusions. Allegory and symbolism are also notions that work together. True symbolism is only unlocked within this book once the reader is aware that this is a smaller world made just to represent humankind as a whole. People like Simon and Jack represent the good and bad, the truthful and deceitful, in society. Characters like Piggy and Ralph represent normal members of society who are then negatively influenced by Jack, just before they would be positively affected by Simon.