Lord of the Flies
The Good, the Bad, and the Evil
Layne Ching
English Comprehensive Focus 40S
Morden Colligate Institute
Mr. N. Zweip
November 6, 2014
There are several different biblical references in the book. The island the boys find themselves on is pristine and untouched, like the Garden of Eden until they arrive. However, once the boys arrived, they left a scar on the island, in much the same way Adam and Eve left a scar in the Garden of Eden. Another religious element Golding uses is in the title of the book. 'Lord of the Flies' translates into 'Beelzebub' in Greek a name for the Devil. This suggests the entire book is about the epitome of religious evil the Devil himself. A final religious element is well hidden. The "stick sharpened at both ends" exists not only in Golding's description of the killing of the sow, but also in the Bible in the story of David and Goliath.
After David kills Goliath, the giant's head is cut off and placed on a "stick sharpened at both ends" and is used to frighten enemies. The similar usage of the stick in this novel (in which the beast's head is used to frighten the enemies of Jack's clan), alludes to the fact that the book has a religious undertone.
One of them being that the beast has come to represent a devil like creature, while Simon is like a saint. When the beast is first mentioned in chapter 2 it is first thought to be a snake, just like the serpent in the Garden of Eden. When Eve listens to the snake and takes the apple against god's words, sin is created and she and Adam lose their innocence. Similarly when the boys first hear about the...