The Island: Paradise Lost
A “major literary influence on Lord of the Flies, an influence that no critic has noted before, despite its almost glaring presence, is Paradise Lost. The epic and the novel have a common theme, the Fall of Man; and it is altogether feasible that Golding, in paralleling in Lord of the Flies situations highly similar to those in Paradise Lost, meant to enrich and to enlarge, by associative suggestion, the scope of his narrative” (Bufkin 2).
“The very first parallel of the novel is the setting itself, the island. The island is meant to be interpreted as the children’s paradise where the Fall of Man takes place. In the beginning the island is described as good. “This judgement of a “good island”, repeated in the first chapter, echoes the Genesis account of creation, “God saw all that he made, and it was very good”” (Gen. 1:13) (Vuuren 7). The island itself is an eden, and in a romantic point of view, an isolated paradise. “The island is that secluded natural environment which in dreams features as the lost paradise” (Vuuren 6). “As in the Biblical creation myth where man and woman are given dominion over the created world, “to work it and take care of it” (Gen. 2:15), the children too enjoy possession and domination. “This belongs to us,” Ralph tells the other two when they have reached the hilltop and surveyed their kingdom (p.31). “Eyes shining, mouths open, triumphant, they savoured the right of domination” (p. 32)...
But the children in the novel represent a race already fallen, and their relationship to the natural world is not custodian, but destructive. They pollute, violate, and finally destroy it by fire, blackening the sky in a conflagration reminiscent both of nuclear destruction and of Biblical prophecies of end. The children reenact the Fall in reversing the process of creation by destroying, in turn, mineral formations, then plant, animal, and human life...by the end of the novel the boys are so brutalised that they hunt their own. The mythical return to Eden is impossible because human nature, even in children, is no longer sinless” (Vuuren 8-9).
“Golding’s bleak irony leaves no doubt that the adult world is anything but an analogy of heaven” (Vuuren 8). “In Paradise Lost the angels fall from Heaven while war is raging there, and Golding has duplicated this situation, too; for the plane carrying the boys is attacked and shot down during a war...Thus while the island the boys land on is an emblem of Paradise, it is ironically also an emblem of Hell” (Bufkin 3).
“Golding makes it clear that Jack and the choirboys are devils--fallen angels...Even though the concept of angels as singers is both traditional and common, Golding points out the connection between the boys and angels explicitly. He says that “ages ago”--a repeated phrase connecting the singing boys and singing birds of “that first morning”--the boys “had stood in demure rows and their voices had been the song of angels.” A double irony is at work here. The phrase means that the boys, who are devils, sang like angels and also that they sang songs of angels; that is, liturgic chants which, on the island, undergo pagan and savage metamorphosis into “Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!” (which Golding terms a “chant” rising “ritually”)” (Bufkin 3).
“Finally, in Lord of the Flies the boys, all of them, assemble, exchange names (perhaps a parallel to the roll-call of the infernal host), hold a council, elect a leader, and explore the island. These are the same acts, and they occur in the same order, that the fallen angels perform in Milton's Hell. Ironically, not Jack, who is "the most obvious leader," but Ralph, who is "no devil," is chosen. But since the movement of the plot is toward the emergence of evil in the boys and its gradual domination of them, it is, fittingly, not long before Ralph's position is usurped by Jack, who finally leads the now savage tribe of boys with their "anonymous devils' faces" and sits in the midst of them "like an idol." (This movement may be viewed, further, as a correspondence to Satan's securing of power in the world.)” (Bufkin 3).
It is by ironically using these symbols and parallels that Golding is able to greatly expand upon the scope of his novel. By using children to represent the fallen angels of Paradise Lost to portray the Fall of Man, all while integrating this literary influence with several others to express his loss of faith in mankind.
“The very first parallel of the novel is the setting itself, the island. The island is meant to be interpreted as the children’s paradise where the Fall of Man takes place. In the beginning the island is described as good. “This judgement of a “good island”, repeated in the first chapter, echoes the Genesis account of creation, “God saw all that he made, and it was very good”” (Gen. 1:13) (Vuuren 7). The island itself is an eden, and in a romantic point of view, an isolated paradise. “The island is that secluded natural environment which in dreams features as the lost paradise” (Vuuren 6). “As in the Biblical creation myth where man and woman are given dominion over the created world, “to work it and take care of it” (Gen. 2:15), the children too enjoy possession and domination. “This belongs to us,” Ralph tells the other two when they have reached the hilltop and surveyed their kingdom (p.31). “Eyes shining, mouths open, triumphant, they savoured the right of domination” (p. 32)...
But the children in the novel represent a race already fallen, and their relationship to the natural world is not custodian, but destructive. They pollute, violate, and finally destroy it by fire, blackening the sky in a conflagration reminiscent both of nuclear destruction and of Biblical prophecies of end. The children reenact the Fall in reversing the process of creation by destroying, in turn, mineral formations, then plant, animal, and human life...by the end of the novel the boys are so brutalised that they hunt their own. The mythical return to Eden is impossible because human nature, even in children, is no longer sinless” (Vuuren 8-9).
“Golding’s bleak irony leaves no doubt that the adult world is anything but an analogy of heaven” (Vuuren 8). “In Paradise Lost the angels fall from Heaven while war is raging there, and Golding has duplicated this situation, too; for the plane carrying the boys is attacked and shot down during a war...Thus while the island the boys land on is an emblem of Paradise, it is ironically also an emblem of Hell” (Bufkin 3).
“Golding makes it clear that Jack and the choirboys are devils--fallen angels...Even though the concept of angels as singers is both traditional and common, Golding points out the connection between the boys and angels explicitly. He says that “ages ago”--a repeated phrase connecting the singing boys and singing birds of “that first morning”--the boys “had stood in demure rows and their voices had been the song of angels.” A double irony is at work here. The phrase means that the boys, who are devils, sang like angels and also that they sang songs of angels; that is, liturgic chants which, on the island, undergo pagan and savage metamorphosis into “Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!” (which Golding terms a “chant” rising “ritually”)” (Bufkin 3).
“Finally, in Lord of the Flies the boys, all of them, assemble, exchange names (perhaps a parallel to the roll-call of the infernal host), hold a council, elect a leader, and explore the island. These are the same acts, and they occur in the same order, that the fallen angels perform in Milton's Hell. Ironically, not Jack, who is "the most obvious leader," but Ralph, who is "no devil," is chosen. But since the movement of the plot is toward the emergence of evil in the boys and its gradual domination of them, it is, fittingly, not long before Ralph's position is usurped by Jack, who finally leads the now savage tribe of boys with their "anonymous devils' faces" and sits in the midst of them "like an idol." (This movement may be viewed, further, as a correspondence to Satan's securing of power in the world.)” (Bufkin 3).
It is by ironically using these symbols and parallels that Golding is able to greatly expand upon the scope of his novel. By using children to represent the fallen angels of Paradise Lost to portray the Fall of Man, all while integrating this literary influence with several others to express his loss of faith in mankind.