Explore How Evil Is Represented In Macbeth and Lord of the Flies.

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“MACBETH” AND “THE LORD OF THE FLIES”

EXPLORE HOW EVIL IS REPRESENTED IN

“MACBETH” AND “THE LORD OF THE FLIES”

ANALYSE THE CHRACTERS RESPONCES TO THIS

'Macbeth' is a play, which was written by William Shakespeare between the reigns of Elizabeth 1 and James 1 in 1606. William Shakespeare had written many plays and poems during his era. Macbeth is one of the most popular amongst his works and is now recognised as a classic. Macbeth is a character in the play that is overcome by evil desires on his way to becoming king. The book explains what happens to Macbeth and how evil causes him to commit such actions, and how he fights to keep his throne as king.

'The Lord of the Flies' is a novel, which is also a classic that had been written by William Golding. It is based during the Second World War, when a group of young boys are fleeing England to safety, but on their way, their plane crashes down onto a deserted island. Miraculously all the Children survive but all the adults had died. The book explores how these children no older than thirteen or fourteen live on the island until rescue arrives. Evil is represented in the novel by the fight for leadership between two rivals, Jack and Ralph, and how the other children live with this.

Both the play and the novel have evil themes within them, which is reacted to by the characters. I will be comparing the ways evil is represented in 'Macbeth' and 'The Lord of the Flies' as well as exploring the different attitudes of the characters.

At the start of Macbeth, evil is first introduced with three witches discussing when they shall meet again with Macbeth. An impression of the images of witches is long hair, long cloaks, large hats and all these items must be in black. In 'The Lord of the Flies', the boys gather together after Piggy and Ralph find a conch and blow it. After these boys gather together they spot another group of boys heading towards them and are described:

‘: but each boy wore a square black cap with a silver badge in it. Their bodies from throat to ankle, were hidden by black cloaks which bore a long silver cross on the left breast and each neck was finished off with a hambone frill.’

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(The Lord of the Flies- chapter 1- pg26)

These boys are a choir and are led by Jack who is the head of the choir. The way they are dressed is like the image a person would get of witches. The cloaks that they were wearing had a silver cross on, and as this war was during the time of Adolph Hitler, the person who had many, many Jews killed, it is a symbol of his Nazi group. Just like when the witches create an image of evil, above are two images in which evil represented within Jack’s group.

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Trying to cover these two texts in one essay has resulted in too superficial an analysis. There are some good points being made but the links between the two texts never really become developed. When carrying out any comparative analysis the linking through similarities and differences needs to be the focus. 3 Stars