In the Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of young boys are stranded on a tropical island after an airplane crash. Although the novel is packed with philosophical themes, the most prominent of them all is how and why ingenuousness is lost. Golding demonstrates that the existence of civilization and stability allows man to remain innocent, and shows that innocence is destroyed when rules are broken and when evil seeps in by using symbols and motifs such as butterflies, pigs, and Simon.

In this novel, butterflies represent freedom from sin as a result of a lack of knowledge of evil. The butterfly is a delicate, brittle creature that flits around, avoiding harm of any kind and is easily destroyed by harm. In this sense, the butterfly duplicates the image of innocence entirely. Innocence is also beautiful yet fragile, and is damaged by...