Jane Smith

English 9

Mrs. Schwartz

25 February 2001

Who Are You? Identity and Savagery in Lord of the Flies

            Who are you?  How do you know?  Are you the person you see in the mirror?  Are you the name your friends and family call you by?  Are you the thoughts, perceptions, and opinions you have in your head?  Or are you just a wisp, a nobody, a creature easily manipulated by your surroundings?  These questions may come to mind as you read William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies (1953).  In the novel, a group of British schoolboys stranded on a desert island struggle to survive and be rescued; but the boys also struggle with something much deeper: their own loss of individual identity and descent into savagery.  Throughout the novel, symbolism conveys how savagery is, in part, defined as losing one’s identity.

            First, the loss of proper names symbolizes the boys’ transformation into savages.  To begin with, the boys’ names represent their individual identities in the civilized world; to the littlun Percy, his name, “Percival Wemys Madison, the Vicarage, Harcourt St., Anthony, Hants…” (86), is like an “incantation” (94) that can remind him of his place back in civilization.  This becomes shockingly important as by the end of the novel Percy is unable to remember his name; he has become so lost in the savageness of the island, he has forgotten his old identity.  The void left by his lost name is left to be filled with savagery.  Similarly, we never learn Piggy’s real name, and Jack gradually leaves his identity behind as he is repeatedly described by the narrator and the other boys simply as “the chief” (160).  This demonstrates how the boys cast off their individual identities as schoolboys and take on roles in the savage game; Jack is no longer the boy once known as Jack but merely, and powerfully, the chief, who tyrannically wields power over his tribe.  The example of the twins Sam and Eric becoming “Samneric” further demonstrates this trend.  Piggy, when discussing the trouble of keeping the signal fire going, complains, “you got to treat Samneric as only one turn.  They do everything together” (138).  The melding of the twins into one being symbolizes how all the boys are gradually losing their individual identities, a sure sign of their becoming savages.

            Not only do Samneric come to act as one person, but the entire group of boys tends to become one wild mob, symbolizing their savageness.   For instance, when Ralph first suggests creating a signal fire, the boys unthinkingly rush to action as a mob: “All at once the crowd swayed toward the island as was gone” (38).  The boys exuberantly create a pile of branches and leaves, acting together, without thinking ahead about how to start the fire or what the consequences might be (as it is too big, gets out of control, and possibly kills a littlun).  Mob mentality gets the better of them.  Furthermore, this mob mentality takes hold of the boys even more devastatingly when, afraid of a thunderstorm, they dance their savage dance: “There was the throb and stamp of a single organism” (152).  The boys are not individual, thinking boys but a single creature driven by fear and impulse.  This pointedly differs from the civilized method of taking individual turns to express individual opinions as with the conch.  The savageness entailed by this loss of identity is demonstrated when the boys attack Simon, and “the mouth of the new circle crunche[s] and scream[s]” (152).  The boys are like a ferocious mouth that devours Simon (the one boy who makes the effort to spend time on his own, and thus maintains his sanity and more civilized way of seeing).  Thus we see how the boys cease to think and act individually, and become a savage mob.

            Finally, the symbol of the face paint reveals how a loss of civility involves a loss of identity.  We first see this when Jack paints his face to facilitate his killing a pig: “He looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger” (63).  Jack Merridew the British schoolboy is gone, and all that is left is the face of a savage.  Jack specifically becomes a stranger, even to himself; he is utterly not himself.  Golding elaborates on the significance of the face paint, describing its effect on Jack and the boys who watch him: “The mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness” (64).  Hiding behind the primal mask, Jack can forget his identity and all that goes along with it; the rules, customs, manners, and consciences of civilization are pushed to one side in favor of doing whatever feels good, of being a savage.  In fact, Jack must give up his identity as Jack in order to feel free to act savagely.  Ultimately, the face paint all the savage hunters wear symbolizes their complete loss of civilized identities, as Ralph, running for his life from Jack’s tribe, observes one savage: “He had even glimpsed one of them, striped brown, black, and red, and had judged that it was Bill.  But really, thought Ralph, this was not Bill.  This was a savage whose image refused to blend with that ancient picture of a boy in shorts and a shirt” (183).  Ralph realizes that the boys have lost their old identities and become savages.  Bill is not a schoolboy, just a savage painted face, completely separate from the old Bill he used to be.  Thus the face paint symbolically represents how humans lose their identities to become savage.

            In summary, the loss of names, the melding of the boys into a mob, and the mask of face paint all symbolize how humans lose their identities in the process of becoming savage.  The boys in Golding’s novel suffer a tragic transformation from individuals who think and act for themselves to a mob of savages who act in a terrible, impulsive unison.  This aspect of the novel reminds us that our sense of ourselves, our moments of quiet, individual reflection, and our standing up for and speaking out of our own opinions are more than simply parts of ourselves; they define us as civilized individuals, and keep savagery for all of society at bay.  Who are you?  For your own sake, and for civilization’s sake, pray you can answer that question.