Lord of the Flies
Usually taken as a political or psychological allegory, Lord of the Flies can also be interpreted from an environmental and vegetarian perspective. For it is the hunt for meat that precipitates the downward movement to chaos and destruction on the island, turning the tropical paradise (i.e. Eden) into Hell. Like the Fall in the Eden story, the descent into savagery in Lord of the Flies is accompanied by meat-eating. The blood-lust is fueled by the desire for dominion (the heart of human darkness). The boys cannot see, except for the prophet-like Simon, that the potential for evil - projected outwards and objectified by them as the Beast - resides in the hearts of all of them. While most readers may judge the boys for their lack of insight, they may not be aware that they themselves are guilty of the same, insofar as they fail to recognize the evil in their own participation as consumers in the animal exploitation industries, which are a major cause of global warming and the destruction of biodiversity (mass extinctions). Just as the boys end up burning their island, so humans are over-heating the planet, destroying the very conditions upon which life on Earth depends.