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A finished essay on lord of the flies
Critical analysis of lord of the flies
Reflection on lord of the flies by William golding
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At first glance, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is about British schoolboys stranded on an island, but this novel could be interpreted in many ways by many different people. One of the most common interpretations is that the novel represents the Christian myth of the fall of man. A less popular interpretation is a comparison to the Osiris myth, stating that pride is the “original sin”. Yet another way the novel could be interpreted is in a psychological way about the gradual return towards amorality and humans’ primitive and savage nature. Lord of the Flies: An Analysis by F.C. Bufkin is about one of the most commonly made comparisons, a comparison to the Christian myth of the fall of man. According to him, the goal of …show more content…
Golding’s Lord of the Flies: Pride as Original Sin by John F. Fitzgerald and John R. Kayser not only compares the novel to the Osiris myth, but also claims that pride is the original sin. They claim that “mankind’s essential illness” is irrational fear and that man do the most outrageous inhumanities in order to appease out pride. The Osiris myth tells the story of the appearance of disagreement and war. Osiris symbolizes all the good in the universe and Typhon symbolizes all the evil. Jack represents Typhon. Jack has red hair, is ruddy, and blushes when he’s angry and frustrated. Typhon is also described as red and ruddy and because of this, red headed men were burned and abused in ancient Egypt because they represented Typhon. Jack’s personality is also Typhonic because he has an overwhelming ambition and a burning desire to become the chief. Ralph is civilized, and the counterpart to Jack. He is Osiris to Jack’s Typhon. Simon and Piggy both represent creativity, reason and intuition. However, Simon’s death symbolically marks the death of Osiris by the power of Typhoon. Simon and Piggy’s bodies fell into the sea just like how Osiris’s body fell into the sea. Pride can show itself in many different ways such as honor, prestige, fame and wealth. Fitzgerald and Kayser claim that in the end, it’s pride and nationalism that caused the destructive, global horrors of the twentieth century. They …show more content…
According to her, the novel is about the slow return towards man’s primitive and savage state. Without adults on the island, the boys form a genuine primitive society, evolving its gods and demons, and its rituals and taboos. Ralph represents a man’s good impulses, and Jack represents the evil instinctual forces. Rosenfield discusses Freud’s conclusions that no child is innocent Piggy represents logic and is a father figure. In the beginning, the boys are “only pretending” and don’t realize how they’re creating a primitive society. Their games eventually turn into reality, prompting Ralph’s increasing focus on their rescue. Rosenfield claims that the ultimate irrationality is war, and that by once again joining society, the boys not only return to a primitive and childish morality, but they also degenerate into adults. Even though many people see children as innocent and playful, but children often can be the cruelest simply because of their lack of understanding. A lot of children don’t understand the consequences of their actions, which is like how the boys on the island are. They only think that only they’re playing, and are unaware of the true meaning of “death” in the real
William Golding’s novel ‘The Lord of The Flies’ tells the story of a group of English boys isolated on a desert island, left to attempt to retain civilisation. In the novel, Golding shows one of the boys, Jack, to change significantly. At the beginning of the book, Jack’s character desires power and although he does not immediately get it, he retains the values of civilized behaviour. However, as the story proceeds, his character becomes more savage, leaving behind the values of society. Jack uses fear of the beast to control the other boys and he changes to become the book’s representation of savagery, violence and domination. He is first taken over with an obsession to hunt, which leads to a change in his physical appearance This change of character is significant as he leads the other boys into savagery, representing Golding’s views of there being a bad and unforgiving nature to every human.
After the plane crashes and the boys find each other, they are scared and helpless. However, after establishing rule and living on the island for some, the boys transform into blood thirsty savages. Because Ralph found and blew into the conch, all surviving members of the plane crash are able to come to one place. The boys call for a vote and Ralph is elected leader. Then Jack, Ralph, and Simon go up to the mountain top to search for a way off. However, on the way back, they find a piglet but Jack can 't bring himself to kill it (Page 23). For this reason, the boys still remember what it’s like to be a civilized kid and this shows how innocence is still present inside the boys. Later, Jack tracks a pig through the forest, but it escapes. Afterwards,
In spite of this, this novel proves that civilization has the power to keep one’s innate cruelty under control. The instance of a society running rampant with evil is seen when the group of boys abandon the civilized behaviors of the adult world, and predominately begin to take in Jack’s vicious influence on them. Thus, as the boys began to act more barbaric and savage, they do not feel the need to listen to Ralph's wisdom and guidance anymore. If they had listened to him, Piggy and Simon, in all likelihood, would not have had to die, and many wise plans would have been followed. Overall, the author reveals that due to the savage and violent nature of humans, qualities of physical power are more prominent than the often under looked qualities of civility and common intelligence in
Later on Piggy tries to justify these actions by saying that “It was dark,” and “it was an accident” (Golding 219-220). The death of Simon represents the death of innocent on the island. Everyone has contributed to this and everyone regrets it. Without innocence, they resort to even more
Simon’s good nature causes him to use selflessness and kindness to help others. Simon nobly goes out of his way to help Piggy find his specks when they were lost, because he knows that Piggy
Jack is shown to be the person who brings everyone down with him, as his values on the island are far more entertaining, despite the violence. Ralph and Piggy are the opposite of Jack, upholding the morals of society, and they do become savage and violent at times, despite their values. The several young children on the island become undisciplined, and the ending of the book presents the stark contrast of the outside world's educated society and the boy's violent one. Golding has proven that humans will revert to a barbaric state with a lack of civilization. With law and order, humans have managed to flourish despite the wars, but without the order, humans have created, chaos would ensue and savagery would win over any sophistication that tried to
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding is tale of a group of young boys who become stranded on a deserted island after their plane crashes. Intertwined in this classic novel are many themes, most that relate to the inherent evil that exists in all human beings and the malicious nature of mankind. In The Lord of the Flies, Golding shows the boys' gradual transformation from being civilized, well-mannered people to savage, ritualistic beasts.
It’s one of the most famous stories to ever exist, the story of how two people changed what defines us as humans. It’s the story of Adam, Eve, a serpent, and the unbecoming of mankind, the Fall of Man. This iconic account has been the premise for many works over the centuries. Today, Lord of the Flies by William Golding is considered one of the most influential novels of our time, not only for its adventurous story of stranded boys on a lost island, but also because of its allegorical tale of the true fault in man’s soul. William Golding leans heavily upon the Biblical account of the Fall of Man to highlight man’s depravity in his novel, Lord of the Flies.
By using symbolism to develop the story, Golding shows his readers that the island is a place of evil and changes the boys from civil to savage. The end of Golding’s story shows the order and organization on the island dying along with Piggy and Simon, causing chaos and destruction to Ralph and the others. Even after many years, Golding’s book still holds the same message, the human nature is the same in everyone and chaos and destruction can be caused by this human nature even in the most peaceful
In the novel, Lord of the Flies, the author William Golding conceals an endless number of themes within the tale. Throughout the novel, the characters face many ongoing challenges as chaos erupts and tensions flare from the lack of adult supervision to watch over and guide the children in a direction that would lead to a more civilized stay on the island. William Golding’s novel focuses profoundly on the separation from a humane civilization that represents virtuous and godly actions, which begins to collapse and turns into an uncultured civilization that represents immoral and sinful actions, but the novel also relates to past pieces of literature. The most well-known pieces of literature that the novel relates to is the Bible. One of the
Piggy cried out in terror: ‘My specs!’ He went crouching and feeling over the rocks but Simon, who got there first, found them for him. Passions beat about Simon on the mountaintop with awful wings.” (71). Jack hitting Piggy is basically how society is being destroyed by evil.
By placing them on an isolated island, it also makes it apparent how fragile civilization actually is. Ralph wants to order fire and shelters because he realizes that they,all of the boys, are going to stay a while and if they don’t make those things they will not survive long. “ As he received the reassurance of something purposeful being done he began to look satisfied,and his only clean digit,a pink thumb, slid into his mouth.” (18) Another example of how William Golding shows human nature is how Jack and the little ones want to have fun instead of having to do work like Ralph wants them to do.
The symbolical allegory “Lord of the Flies” written by William Golding, symbolizes through different characters of how humankind are evil from the core. The story of a group of schoolboys trapped on a deserted island takes more of a symbolizing story than it might seem. Each detail takes a position in the story to show the core of humanity. A group of young boys together without adult supervision causes the boys to slowly reveal their savage core. Being a part of the English society has taught them to make rules and follow them, but slowly as they realize that there are no grownups are there to stop them, the revealing of their nature begins. William Golding states in his interview concerning the theme of the book, “The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature.” (Golding 204). The human race has been evil ever since Adam and Eve sinned, but through the Bible, we try our best to cover the core of our hearts with rules and morality.
Along with Piggy's fall goes the Conch, the biggest symbol of civilization, now a nearly innocent boy and all civilization has been lost. These deaths have been made out to be totally harmless because theres zero punishment within their society; the very society that has transformed little boys into ruthless, savages. The island on which the boys have been stranded possesses an evil and corrupt society, which depletes all innocence the boys once obtained. This is a drastic transformation as now the boys are hungry to kill and do not withhold any sense of their old civilizations moral values. William Golding shows the society people are swallowed up by molds, their beliefs and values through the extensive change young, innocent, boys have gone through.
The novel starts off with a bunch of boys stranded on a tropical island. This is a perfect place for a group of kids to have tons of fun. The kids have no adult supervision and do not have to worry about getting in trouble by adults. "When the little kids land they are delighted to find hat there are no grown-ups about" (Pg. 210, Forester). This shows that they do not worry about getting in trouble, which will later come back to haunt them. The young boys plan on having a fun time on the island and plan on just goofing around. Ralph shows this several time in the first chapter by swimming in a lagoon and standing on his head. "Ralph lolled in the water"(11). All the kids seem to be happy about being together on the island and plan on being rescued soon. The children in the first section of the book still follow the laws and rules that they had before. Jack "The hunter" cannot bring himself to kill a pig in the beginning of the book. "In his first confrontation with a pig, Jack fails, unable to plunge his knife into living flesh, to bear the sight of flowing blood, and unable to do so because he is not yet far enough away from the ‘taboo of the old life’" (246, Mueller). This shows that the kids still do have morals. Another example of the boys still following the laws and rules of society is when “Roger throws stones at Henry, but he throws to miss because ‘round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law’”(238, Gregor).