The Absence of Childhood Innocence

The works Timon of Athens and Lord of the Flies can both be easily viewed as extreme criticisms of human’s social interactions/structure. Both describe the downfall of a society (Timon’s Athens and Lord of the Flies’ makeshift island community) through human relations. While these two are similar in their viewpoints of man, I found (the Cardinal Stage production of) Lord of the Flies to be a harsher/more extreme critique of human sociality.

            The story features young school children as its main characters as they become stranded on a remote island and have to fend for themselves. For me, the key concept to consider was the fact that the characters are children. The child is the archetypal symbol for innocence and purity; a human not yet contaminated by society. However, Lord of the Flies and the Cardinal Stage Company portray these children as savages who resort to killing each other when left alone, a polar opposite from the child’s general image of purity. Though Timon’s tirades against society are formidable, his character is an old man who has had lots of time to experience and be shaped by the corruption of the world. Since the children of Lord of the Flies have just been thrust into their own society, their rapid descent into savagery is a more extreme depiction of human relations.