Oscar Wilde once said: “Man is least himself when he speaks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth." What a twisted and convoluted idea to wrap your mind around, but still an idea worth entertaining. As human beings the search for truth is one of the journeys every individual must undertake. L Humanity is obsessed with truth. Humans have fought wars, killed rulers and founded nations in the name of truth. So that what Oscar Wilde says seems totally unfounded. Are men so infatuated with the truth, why does he lie when he speaks in person? It seems so counterintuitive that some have dismissed this quote as the raving of a madman. The man lies because he is afraid of what society might impose on him if he were truly himself. Both “I Only Came to Use the Telephone” and “Lord of the Flies” isolate the main characters from the evils of society. Isolating the characters from society in both stories is a way to elicit behavior that would normally be suppressed by society, which induces the idea that society subjugates true identity and therefore blocks the path to enlightenment. First of all, one of the most obvious signs in “Lord of the Flies” that the main character (Ralph) does not see reality as it is, is that Ralph is constantly upside down. When he first arrived on the island, "He gently stroked the trunk of the palm tree and, forced at last to believe in the reality of the island, laughed happily again and stood upright" (10). When Ralph stands upside down it symbolizes his view of the world literally upside down. He is misguided and thinks that... in the middle of the paper... some behaviors emerge from society that would otherwise have been stifled by society, which evokes the idea that society subjugates one's true identity and consequently blocks the path to enlightenment . Everyone must ask themselves the same question: at what cost am I willing to achieve enlightenment? Hopefully the answer is anything, even if it means destroying society as we know it. Why wouldn't it be a better world if everyone knew the truth and was at peace with themselves? Works Cited Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Coward-McCann, 1962. Print.Márquez, Gabriel. "I just came to use the phone." Strange Pilgrims: Twelve Stories. New York: Knopf, 1993. 71-91. Print."Quotes by Oscar Wilde." Clever quote. Xplore and Web. 7 November. 2013. .