Mockingbirds and Flies - Book Report/Review Example

This is the name given to the inner beast, to which only Simon ever actually speaks. As Simon waits for the beast's arrival near the bloody sow's head on the stake (buzzing with flies), the Lord of the Flies speaks to him, warning him not to get in its way or make any attempts to explain this understanding of the nature of the beast to the others, or else he shall be killed by the rest of the boys.The Lord of the Flies name comes from the cow's head and the countless flies buzzing about it, which soon move from the sow's head to swarm around the head of Simon as the Lord of the Flies tells him, "I'm a part of you" (Golding 164).

In fact, it is a part of all the boys, who are losing their links with civilization and are all turning savage and evil together and forgetting about civilization. Lee's regional novel deals with universal themes of tolerance, courage, compassion, and justice. In it, the songs of innocents - nave and pure as mockingbirds - are forever silenced by the bitter knowledge of corrupt human nature.The title of To Kill a Mockingbird has very little literal connection to the plot, but it carries a great deal of symbolic weight in the book.

In this story of innocents destroyed by evil, the mockingbird represents innocence. Like hunters who kill mockingbirds for sport, people kill innocence or other people who are innocent, without thinking about what they are doing.Atticus stands firm in his defense of innocence and urges his children not to shoot mockingbirds both literally and figuratively. The mockingbird motif arises four times during the book: First, when Atticus gives Jem and Scout air guns for Christmas and instructs them not to kill mockingbirds; second, when B.B. Underwood writes about Tom Robinson's death in his column; and third, a mockingbird sings right before Bob Ewell attacks Jem and Scout.

Finally, Scout agrees with Atticus that prosecuting Boo for Ewell's murder would be like "shootin' a mockingbird" (Lee 317).In many ways, these two symbols differ: the flies in Lord of the Flies show evil's existence within the dark heart of man, against the backdrop of a lush paradise; while the mockingbirds in Lee's portrayal of Southern life during the 1930s come to represent the idea of innocence, and the destruction of that innocence through contact with evil.Yet a deeper study of the symbols within both of these novels reveals a single, greater truth: "Our greatest evils flow from ourselves" (Tripp 192).

This statement, by Rousseau, epitomizes many points of evil that are discussed in both Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Golding's Lord of the Flies.