Mary, like many others, is a scrapped character from the very first manucripts of "The lord of the flies". The reason why she was early scrapped remains unknown, we theorize it could be either because the editors or Golding himself considered the adittion of a girl to be unnecessary and to not make sense for the story that was being told, it also could be because her scenes only made the novel harder to follow and too graphic, even for the tone of the novel, as it contains strong sexism, discussion about menstrual cycles (wich would have been scandalous for the times the novel was published) and other gruessome themes such as death by neglect and beheading.
Please proceed with caution as we will disscuss the topics mentioned previously.
She makes her next appearance after the vote, she shows insistence in wanting to be part of the hunters, , however Jack mocks her and makes some pretty insensitive remarks about sexist stereotypes about women being weak and defenseless. This upsets the girl who states she is in fact not weak or scared, as she is convinced once she grows up they will see her go to war and become a war photgrapher. jack mocks her again and states that the war field is for the man and that women stay in the house waiting for them to come back.
Before the argument escalates however Ralph interveens and tasks Mary to take care of the littluns much to her complain, task he also assigns to Piggy later.
Throught the story Mary does not take a predominant role, and what she does just get's mentioned by other characters, usually when the topic of the littluns comes up, as she is the one who has to console the littluns when they are in disstressed during meetings or at night. We considering this mentions of her persona are not that worth expanding on is she is mainly that, taking care of the little ones.
There is however one conversation about her worth commenting on during chapter three, where Ralph's, Jack's and Simon's, aside from the actual conversation they have we see in the book Simon also comments on how the others seemed to be interested in helping with huts when Mary told the story of The three little Pigs to them, that excitement however didn't seem to last long. Jack questions if they really expected that method to work, and that she wasn't all that good in keeping the littluns calm at night. Ralph replies that they are even louder and whinnier now that she is gone, and suggests they should take her back since her conditon wasn't dangerous and it would stop in a few days. Jack affirms that until it doesn't stop is dangerous to have her back in, as the smell of the blood could potentially attract anything dangerous they aren't aware of and that also some kids still think she is a witch. The three boys then settle that they'll take her back in once the bleeding from her legs stop. And since we see Mary again in later chapters with the rest of the boys it seems they kept their word.
At the feast she gets mentioned briefly to be watching how the dissaster unfolds from affar. this will be however implied to be an important breaking point for her.Much like in the actual story at the beggining of chapter nine only Ralph, Piggy and the twins can be seen at the beach, therephore it seems it was the very night after the feast she decided to join Jack's tribe. However, as we will comment later on it seems out of fear for her life than anything else, giving the behaviour she exibits.
During chapter nine when Jack is taking about his plans for the next hunt to his tribe, Mary is seen standing next to him, fidgeting with Jack's cape that she is wearing herself,a pained expression on her face as she looks intensely at Wilfred. From dialoge we learn Jack has taken her as his wife (probably why she is wearing specifically his choir cape), despite that he doesn't seem to be particullary interested in her.In this chapter there's also a scene at the end that was entirely removed, as it focusses on how Mary, in inmense hunger and pain from what we deduced are cramps is coming from the jungle during the night with fruits, she is mentally cursing herself from the situation she got in, blaming herself for not standing for Wilfred while he was being tortured as he looked at her with pleading eyes. While climbing up castle rock with fruit in hand she keeps tripping due to Jack's cape limiting her movements, until in one of this instances she trips and falls backwards, hitting the back of her head with a rock, causing it to rapidly start bleeding prufoselly, it is a gruesome scene where it described in great detail the pain she is under from the starvation, the menstruation pain,tiredness and now her wound, she tries to scream and to plead for help but no one comes. The following scene takes place in what we assume are hours after, where Jack, Roger and Maurice, who come gleefully celebrating their suceess in the task come to find Mary's body, laying in the floor, presumably for quite some time now. They take her to castle rock to see if he can do something about it, but after coming to the realization that there's not much they can do Jack comes with the idea of offering her head as a sacrifice to the beast. Jack impatienly takes matters into his own hands, beheading Mary's corpse, taking her head and dissapearing into the forest, Roger and Maurice following closely behind as Jack commands them to sharpen one of their spears on the other end.
There is no found source of what happened to her body after.
The symbol most associated with her is arguably the ribbon she uses to tie up her hair, as it is described everytime she makes an appearance, and is in constant change alongside Mary.
During the first two chapters of the book the ribbon is tied like a bow in a half up fashion. However from chapter three onwards her hair is tied with the ribbon in a messy and wild ponytail. Going from an object used mainly for aesthetic reasons to an object whose value relies in practicality, symbolicing her loss of innocence and forced maturity. An idea reinforced by the color changes her bow experiments, going from a white, commonly used to symbolize purity and childlike innocence, to progressively becoming brownish from mud and dirt, until turning stained with dark red from the wound that ulimately results in her death.
As for what could her character represent we came up with a few interpretations:
First we could theorice she represents motherhood, which would be a fitting theme for the time of the novel, as women only were considered worthy by their ability as caregivers, her name being Mary and her persistant love and compaionship she shows to the some of the boys in the island, despite being unanimously and persistently casted asside, leads us to believe she is meant to be a parallel of mother Mary just like Simon is of Jesus. Another clear parallel she has with an object relating to motherhood is of her and the mother sow, as their faiths are similar and both of them are a consequence of the boys evilness. It could also be a commentary on the oppresion of women being forced into and expected innate motherhood.
Which leads us to believe to she is also meant to represent opressed sectors of society, at first instance showing resistance to their subjugation, but after constant situation of harshness and being made aware of the power and brutality of those in positions of power or above them, develop a learned helplessness, letting themselves be opressed in order to ensure survival.
It is unknown to us why Golding planned to include a girl in his story, as he had stated that he considered "that a group of little boys would better represent a scaled-down version of society". Maybe before editors turning off the manuscrips Mary is included in, Golding actually intended to add one girl in order to have a figure that offers at least a brief femenine view on the issues of society he considered worth commenting on.
Regardless of author William Goldings intentions were with the character of Mary it's a shame we never got to see her in the actual novel as she has great potential as a character. That's why we actually wanted to have a space for people to know about her.
And I hope you liked her as much as we do.