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The use of symbolism in Lord of the Flies
The use of symbolism in Lord of the Flies
The use of symbolism in Lord of the Flies
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The Lord of the Flies is a novel that describes a group of boy’s abandonment of civility and transformation into violence and savagery. The characters in the book quickly become like animals, acting upon impulse and lacking reason. The very proper English boys arrive on the island completely proper and refined, even to the point of instituting their own government. However, as the story progresses, the boys soon forget their past and release the savage from within themselves. In The Lord of the Flies, as the boys deteriorate as sensible people, their appearance, the conch shell, as well as Piggy’s glasses likewise begin to decay.
When the boys first arrive on the island, the reader is introduced to Piggy and Ralph, boys who quickly become the leaders and intellectual boys on the isle. As they begin exploring, spotting something in the water, “Ralph had stopped smiling and was pointing into the lagoon. Something creamy lay among the ferny weeds” (Golding 10). Piggy claims it to be a rock but after inspecting it, Ralph discovers a conch shell that Piggy says can be blown as a signal. This conch shell started as just a shell Ralph spotted at the lagoon. Nonetheless, it began to grow in importance to the point where, the person who held the conch at meetings was given the right to speak. This being the case, it became a symbol of civilization and order. After Jack fails to start a rebellion, he "laid the conch with great care in the grass at [Jack’s] feet" (Golding 133). The conch is so respected that even someone who tries to fight against society and structure, doesn’t damage the conch but instead, he sets it down at Ralph’s feet carefully. Not only does the conch give the right to speak, but it also allows for meetings to be held...
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...ew conflicts between him and Jack, the Narrator describes Jack as, “The chief led them, trotting steadily, exulting in his achievement. He was a chief now in truth; and he made stabbing motions with his spear. From his left hand dangled Piggy's broken glasses” (Golding 179). When broken, the glasses became no longer a symbol of reason and logic but rather, they became a symbol of how far from civilization the boys had come.
In The Lord of the Flies, The characters in the book quickly become like animals, acting upon impulse and lacking reason and the boys abandoned civility and transformed into savages. As the story progresses, the boys soon forget their past and release the savage from within themselves. In The Lord of the Flies, as the boys degrade as sensible people, their appearance, the conch shell, as well as Piggy’s glasses mirror this crumble.
Society and organization in William Goldin’s Lord of the Flies decayed and deteriorated similarly to a severed pig’s head in the story given the same name. A group of boys is stranded on an island; at first, their society flourishes. Sadly, conflicts quickly arose, weakening the society’s structure. In the earliest part of the book, a boy named Ralph and a boy named Piggy find a conch shell which, when blown, allows every other boy to find them. Jack, a harsh character and leader of a choir, is immediately brought to attention by attempting to ignore Simon, a member of his group who had fainted. Jack proceeded to degrade Piggy for his overweight condition. He then ran against Ralph for leadership on the island. One must not look hard to connect
In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Simon and Piggy are among a group of boys who become stranded on a deserted island. Left without any adults, the boys attempt to create an orderly society. However, as the novel progresses, the boys struggle to sustain civility. Slowly, Jack and his hunters begin to lose sight of being rescued and start to act more savagely, especially as fears about a beast on the island spread. As the conflict progresses, Jack and Ralph battle for power. The boys’ struggle with the physical obstacles of the island leads them to face a new unexpected challenge: human nature. One of the boys, Simon, soon discovers that the “beast” appears not to be something physical, but a flaw within all humans
Throughout the novel several different characters are introduced to the reader, such as Ralph, Jack, Simon and Piggy. With all these characters presented to the reader, one can get to see into their minds-eye, which allows the reader to analyze their character. In this case one could examine their basic morals and distinguish between the person’s natural instinct to rely on civilization or savagery to solve their problems. The author of the novel, William Golding, had a “first-hand experience of battle line action during World War II” which caused him to realize, “[that] The war alone was not what appalled him, but what he had learnt of the natural - and original- sinfulness of mankind did. It was the evil seen daily as commonplace and repeated by events it was possible to read in any newspaper which, he asserted, were the matter of Lord of the Flies” (Foster, 7-10). This being said by Golding leads one to the central problem in the novel the Lord of the Flies, which can be regarded as the distinction between civility and savagery. This can be seen through the characters that are presented in the novel, and how these boys go from a disciplined lifestyle, to now having to adapt to an unstructured and barbaric one in the jungle.
In Lord of the Flies, a group of well brought up English boys are pushed into the task of surviving on an island by themselves. In the beginning, order, leadership, and fire are the only things that help the boys realize that there is hope for being rescued. As the boys’ time on the island continues to increase, they become more tempted to let their inner beast within them take over. As order is lost, the boys try to cope with the fact that they may be on the island for awhile. So, they revert to savage ways in order to cope with it. Their schoolboy behaviors become non-existent and chaos breaks loose. The conch shell, the Beast, leadership, murder, and fire are all five main elements that help lead the boys into their plug to savagery because without rules and discipline their will be chaos.
When the boys arrive at the island after a plane crash, they are forced to find a way to keep everything in order and under control. “At first they delight in their freedom and in their pleasure of the island”( Saidi, Hasan1). Then the boys begin to explore, Ralph and Piggy find a conch shell on the beach. When Ralph and Piggy first see the shell Piggy says "S'right. It's a shell! I seen one like that before. On someone's back wall. A conch he called it. He used to blow it and then his mum would come. It's ever so valuable--" (Golding15). They use this shell as a symbol of how fragile order and democracy is. The sound from the shell gathers all the boys together after the plane crash. The plane crash seperated them in th...
f structure and civilization symbolised through the conch. When Ralph first blows the conch the boys give Ralph respect and look up to him because the power the conch has. The boys even vote for Ralph over Jack because Ralph had blown this conch: “Let him be chief with the trumpet-thing” said the boys. The boys so called democracy not knowing Ralph or Jack simply had chosen to vote Ralph because he posses that shell with no true meaning. The conch had governed the boys’ meetings, and gave who held the shell the right to speak making the conch more than a shell but a symbol of structure and order on the island. But structure and order only wield a power if people are willing to follow the rules. Which the boys at the beginning of the book want because they are used to responding to rules and feel it is safer and more practical but as they progress on the island the conch starts loses it’s power as the boys are not as willing to respond to the rules.
Lord of the flies dramatizes the conflict between the civilisation and savagery that exists in all human beings. Every choice that the author makes is designed to emphasize the struggle between the order of society, which includes morality, order, law and culture and chaotic elements of humanity’s savage instincts, which include anarchy, bloodlust, the desire for power, amorality, selfishness and violence. As the story progresses we see the swift fall of civilisation and the rise of savagery which is a key motif of this dystopian novel. One of the main characters, Piggy is used to present many allegorical messages such as injustice in society. However as savagery becomes more intense in the novel, Piggy is defenceless and weak so begins to suffer more injustices and eventually
Civilization struggling for power against savagery was shown throughout Lord of the Flies. These opposite mindsets are shown battling while determining who had the right to speak during assemblies, when the group hunted pigs, throughout the struggle over Piggy’s glasses, and finally with Simon’s death. These polar opposites are shown throughout these examples and reveal the desperation of clinging to civilization while savagery took over the actions of the some of the boys in Lord of the Flies.
They are first used when the boys don’t know how to light a fire. They “use [the] [specs] as burning glasses” (32). The glasses are the only way for the children on the island to light the fire. The rest of the boys are not equipped with technology and science, unlike Piggy. So they are not able to reason and not think savagely. Evil or “the tribe of painted savages [cause] Ralph’s mind [to] [falter], there [is] no Piggy to talk sense. There [is] no solemn assembly for debate nor dignity of the conch” (160, 177). Just like how human nature is to revert to evil. Science and innovation isn't as strong as savagery or rules, but it provides a cleaner perspective of how to act, almost like how glasses allow Piggy to see better and “think.’ what [is] the sensible thing to do [and] what intelligence [has] been shown [is] traceable to Piggy.” (177, 15). Thinking and logic separates humans from animals and allow mankind to rise above. Why the boys become savage can be explained by the lack of thinking and logic that the boys have. Unlike Piggy who is well equipped with technology and intelligence. And science is only as powerful as those who believe in it. When Piggy is “no good on a job,’ or when “Piggy [opens] his mouth to speak, [catches] Jack’s eye and [shuts] it again,” it is because the other boys don’t believe in science or see its value, just like how they don’t see Piggy’s value (17, 34). The glasses are a symbol of innovation and
The boys use the conch shell as a way to establish their power on the island; supremacy is given to anyone holding the conch at that particular time. Ralph and Piggy find the conch in the beginning of the novel, and this conch brings everyone together on the island. The conch is a symbol of civilization and authority. It helps guide the boys to come together as one. Although each of the choir boys used the conch as a way of respect and supremacy, anyone who wanted to talk or hold the conch at the moment, quickly becomes useless because each boy wants power for themselves. They began to realize that at a certain point, it is everyman for themselves, initiating survival of the fittest. As the boys were scattered, they were not able to find the pilot, who had crashed on the island with them.
I observed that in the beginning, the conch holds the ultimate power on the island. It dictates what has to be done, and allows Ralph to have control over the rest of kids simulating a mini society. This is displayed when Ralph is elected as chief: ”Him with the shell." "Ralph! Ralph!" "Let him be chief with the trumpet thing” (Golding page___). This quote shows how the kids think that the power comes from the conch, and is a sign of protection, order, and leadership.
First, of the many symbolic objects in the Lord of the Flies are Piggy’s glasses. His glasses symbolize many different things in the novel. First they symbolize hope. Piggy’s specs are what the boys are using to light their signal fire, and without their fire, there is no hope for them of ever being rescued from the island. Therefore the only hope that the boys have of leaving the island is in the balance of the condition of Piggy’s glasses. Without them being in a good enough condition to use to make a fire, then there would be no hope of them ever leaving the island. Second, Piggy’s glasses represent civilization. Piggy’s glasses are a small piece of civilization they can cling to. When the glasses are first cracked, it is a symbolic drop in the civilization of the boys on the island. Jack punches Piggy and the glasses fall off his face, only one of the lenses are broken which represents half of the destruction of civilization. But when Piggy is crushed by the boulder and his specs are destroyed, it represents the total destruction of their civilization and the boys fall into savagery and begin to hunt down Ralph. Lastly, Piggy’s specs signify his ability to “see”, both literally and figu...
The conch shell is found early in chapter one (“The Sound of the Shell”) by Ralph who is bathing in the sea because of the strenuous heat of the deserted island that the boys have been stranded on. Ralph discovered the shell and he first thought it was a rock, which may foreshadow future events in the novel. At first Ralph wasn’t sure what it was but knowledgeable Piggy informed him that it was a conch shell symbolizing leadership and power. Piggy specified that the conch shell was “Ever so valuable--” The conch shell fascinated both Piggy and Ralph as they realized the possibilities of the shell, “Now the shell was no longer a thing seen but not to be touched, Ralph too became excited.” Ralph had ideas in his head about all the uses of the ...
Lord Of The Flies is possibly one of the most complex novels of the twentieth century. This complexity and depth is evident when the characters are compared to the psychological teachings of Freud. The book shows examples of this psyche in the characters Jack, Piggy and Ralph and how they change during their time on the island.
Imagine a group of young boys who have just crash-landed on a deserted tropical island with no adults or supervision. William Golding showed in his ground breaking novel Lord of the Flies, what may happen in just those circumstances. In his very complicated and diverse novel Golding brings out many ideas and uses many literary devices. Above all others though comes symbolism of three main important objects being the conch, fire, and "Piggy's" eyeglasses. Through each of these three symbols Golding shows how the boys adapt and change throughout the novel. These symbols also help to show each of the boy's ideals on a variety of elements from human nature to society and its controls. All three of these symbols also change and are one of the most important elements of the story.