Lord of the Flies - Character
Viewing the Text from a Different Perspective Many times in novels the elements of setting, mood and tone are used to extend beyond the words in a text and elaborate the reader's mind into imagining the actual events taking place. In the classic novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding utilizes the setting, mood and tone in great detail to reflect how the characters think, act and feel. Upon a desolate tropical island, a group of boys of different characteristics get marooned when their plane crashes. Golding describes the island in a way that appeals to the reader as paradise, "The palms that stood made a green roof, covered on the underside with a quivering tangle of reflections from the lagoon...It was clear to the bottom and bright with the efflorescence of tropical weed and coral. A school of tiny, glittering fish flicked hither and thither." (p.12) The island itself suggests a place of wonder and relaxation. Providing the reader with the impression of an utopia society, an impression that will soon be contradicted as the novel progresses. After a signal fire is ignited by Ralph's orders, two young twins, Sam and Eric stand guard in maintaining the fire. While on duty, an eerie figure drifts down from the sky and lands in the forest several yards away from Sam and Eric. "There was a sudden bright explosion and corkscrew trail across the sky...There was a speck above the island, a figure dropping swiftly beneath a parachute, a figure that hung with dangling limbs. The changing winds of various altitudes took the figure where they would. Then three miles up, the wind steadied and bore it in a descending curve round the sky and swept it in a great slant across the reef and the lagoon toward the mountain." (p.95) The dead parachutist, also known as the beast, is used to foreshadow the death of Simon, a small although intellectual boy. The parachutist shows the idea of one man slaughtering another as he dies in war. As