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Use of symbolism in Lord of the flies
The lord of flies character development
Use of symbolism in Lord of the flies
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In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the characters find themselves on a remote island which influences their behavior throughout the novel. While the violent and tribal nature that is revealed at the conclusion may come from eons of “survival of the fittest”, it is the island itself which has brought forth this animal-like behavior. If the characters of Lord of the Flies had not been stranded in a place without modern civilization and comforts, they would not have resorted to their primal nature. The environment in which the entire novel takes place could be considered its own dynamic character, one that affects all the other characters of the narrative. The island symbolizes different ideas to various characters throughout, both positive and negative. When the boys first discover that they …show more content…
This independence which they have been granted is at first appealing to the boys. When Ralph realizes that there is no one to control him, “the delight of a realized ambition overcame him… he stood on his head and grinned” (Golding 8). Many young boys dream of being away from their parents where they are not told what to do, and the situation the boys find themselves in brings just that. The presence of the beach and ocean, as well as the lack of authority, allows the boys to be playful. The island brings a more peaceful sort of joy to another one of the boys: Simon. Simon discovers the beauty of the island by listening closely while he is unaccompanied in the jungle. Simon hears “sounds of the bright fantastic birds, the bee-sounds, even the crying of the gulls… the deep sea breaking miles away on the reed made an undertone less perceptible than the susurration of the blood” (Golding 57). To Simon, the island has a sense magnificence that can only by brought by nature. This setting comforts him more than anyone else can. The island also brings a more primal sense of accomplishment to the boys when they kill their
eventually turns the boys into frenzied savages, undaunted by the barbaric orders he decrees. The boys focus more and more on hunting and exploring, neglecting their primary objective: returning home to their families and civilization. The island boys experience manipulation, intimidation, and brutality while under Jack’s authority, revealing that the impact on those under reckless control can prove to be extremely harsh and
The book can be split into three parts to show how evil on the island advances. In the first part we learn about the boys meeting on the island and the first assembly. The boys share their ideas but hopes fall due to some of the boys, which fail to admit that they think they will be saved. In the second part the threat of evil begins especially due to the arrival of the dead air pilot. Immediately, the boys are struck with fear... and the boys are all affected with it like a disease What the boys don’t realize at this point is that its not an external fear which creates evil it’s the boys own nature. Finally the third part which is the most terrible part of the story is when the book explores the meaning and consequence of the creation of evil. The evil is so great on the island that the boys eventually split, the good and the evil. The hunters are the evil when Ralph and his friends are the good. The parting of the boys resulted in death, pain and savage. Simon projects the internal evil and fear of the boys. However Simon doesn’t share his feelings for the evil with the others. Within the story Simon is seen as the ‘Christ’ of the island.
When Ralph is confronted with adversity his character develops. He loses his sense of civilization and the savagery within him grows after killing his friend Simon. Ralph faces the inevitable loss of innocence on the island when discovering what was humanity is capable of. This novel will forever remain popular as it shows human nature in its truest form.
The lack of civilization and human goodness leads the young children to evils and a bad environment that they have never faced. Simon, a “skinny, vivid boy, (pg. 24)” is a member of Jack’s choir but soon leaves his tribe and joins Ralph because he is not able to deal with the cruel leadership. As all the other characters fail to maintain responsibilities and their commitments to the rules of the island, Simon is the only person who dedicates to them as things begin to fall apart. He is a character with a respectful, spiritual personality and has a human goodness with nature as he deals with the littluns and the older boys. For example, he helps the littluns pick fruit to eat, recovers Piggy’s glasses when they fly off his face, gives Piggy his own share of meat when he was refused a piece and gives ...
As Ralph is trying to hide from them overnight, he wonders, “Might it not be possible to walk boldly into the fort… pretend they were still boys, schoolboys who had said, ‘Sir, yes, sir’- and worn caps? Daylight might have answered yes; but darkness and the horrors of death said no” (186). No matter how hard Ralph tries, he cannot discard his new knowledge of Jack and his tribe’s potential for evil and corruption. For a long time Ralph seems to be in denial; like many others, he seems to want to stay true to his belief in the overall goodness of the human heart. Ralph’s expectations for human kindness are finally challenged to the point of irreversibility when Jack attacks him and tries to pursue him on a vicious manhunt. When Ralph collapses on the beach and a naval officer arrives, “With filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, [and] the darkness of man’s heart...” (202). One might think it strange that rather than rejoicing over rescue, Ralph and the rest of the boys cry out in grief. The young schoolboys come to understand the enormity of human greed and evil, and unfortunately it is a lesson that they will not be able to ignore or forget. They witness and play a role in their own loss of innocence, and the time they spend on the island teaches them what
One of the main themes in William Golding's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies is that without civilization, there is no law and order. The expression of Golding's unorthodox and complex views are embodied in the many varied characters in the novel. One of Golding's unorthodox views is that only one aspect of the modern world keeps people from reverting back to savagery and that is society. Golding shows the extreme situations of what could possibly happen in a society composed of people taken from a structured society then put into a structureless society in the blink of an eye. First there is a need for order until the people on the island realize that there are no rules to dictate their lives and take Daveers into their own hands. Golding is also a master of contrasting characterization. This can be seen in the conflicts between the characters of Jack, the savage; Simon, the savior; and Piggy, the one with all the ideas.
William Golding’s novel ‘The Lord of The flies’ presents us with a group of English boys who are isolated on a desert island, left to try and retain a civilised society. In this novel Golding manages to display the boys slow descent into savagery as democracy on the island diminishes.
A community that has immaturity in itself leads to chaos. The immaturity on the island starts on the very first day with the boys taking of all their clothes off. Following after the clothes, Jack tries to tell Ralph what he is going to do which is hunt for pigs. Instead of the fire job Ralph gave Jack. Since, Jack is unhappy with all of Ralph’s rules, Jack creates another immature community to be chief. In the end, when Jack to tries to kill Ralph the plan backfires, and gets all of the boys rescued. Therefore,
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies portrays the lives of young British boys whose plane crashed on a deserted island and their struggle for survival. The task of survival was challenging for such young boys, while maintaining the civilized orders and humanity they were so accustomed too. These extremely difficult circumstances and the need for survival turned these innocent boys into the most primitive and savaged mankind could imagine. William Golding illustrates man’s capacity for evil, which is revealed in man’s inherent nature. Golding uses characterization, symbolism and style of writing to show man’s inhumanity and evil towards one another.
The book Lord of the Flies was William Golding’s first novel he had published, and also his one that is the most well known. It follows the story of a group of British schoolboys whose plane, supposedly carrying them somewhere safe to live during the vaguely mentioned war going on, crashes on the shore of a deserted island. They try to attempt to cope with their situation and govern themselves while they wait to be rescued, but they instead regress to primal instincts and the manner and mentality of humanity’s earliest societies.
When the children become stranded on the island, the rules of society no longer apply to them. Without the supervision of their parents or of the law, the primitive nature of the boys surfaces, and their lives begin to fall apart. The downfall starts with their refusal to gather things for survival. The initial reaction of the boys is to swim, run, jump, and play. They do not wish to build shelters, gather food, or keep a signal fire going. Consequently, the boys live without luxury that could have been obtained had they maintained a society on the island. Instead, these young boys take advantage of their freedom and life as they knew it deteriorates.
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.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies shows man’s inhumanity to man. This novel shows readers good vs. evil through children. It uses their way of coping with being stranded on an island to show us how corrupt humans really are.
Towards the middle of Simon's stay on the island, he started to realize that he truly was different from the others. Every time he tried to talk to the other children, his 'effort fell about him in ruins; the laughter beat him cruelly and he shrank away defenseless to his seat.';(89) Just when he thought he had been accepted he embarrassed himself again, 'When he bashed into a tree Ralph looked sideways impatiently and Robert sniggered.';(104) They were getting restless with his behavior.
The critic David Spitz writes in his essay entitled “Power and Authority: An Interpretation of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies”, “[....][The island] was, if you will, a state of nature inhabited by free and equal individuals. If anything were to go wrong, as it tragically did, it could only come, then, from within; the only enemy of man was himself” (Spitz 191). Here, Spitz explicates how Golding sets up events on the island to forcefully assert his message regarding human fallibility. Golding eliminates a plethora of factors that traditionally affect human behavior to leave the island in “a state of nature inhabited by free and equal individuals.” Golding removes the boys from ‘civilized’ society and injects them to a remote island, a beautiful and Edenesque paradise abounding with food, water, and shelter; thereby separating them from the material worries. Moreover, Golding uses young children of the same gender to remove the influence of conventional sexual motivations. Even further, he strips away distinctions of class, social status, and inequality. It is here, in a veritable utopia without traditional societal pressures, that the boys reveal their own inner evil. Spitz reveals Golding’s careful crafting of a microcosm for the outside civilization as a