In the novel Lord of the Flies, author William Golding tells a story about a group of conservative boys who get stranded on an island after a plane crash. The boys are left to take care of themselves by finding food, water, and setting up a social system to keep order. The boys had to do this because there were no adults to guide them. The boys establish rules to keep everything on the island under control. Eventually the boys break these rules to accommodate their own selfish wants and needs. When the rules are broken the order on the island falls apart and a violent fight for power begins. Lord of the flies was published during the era of the cold war. The cold war was a tension for power between Russia and the U.S., a dictatorship and a democracy. Just like the struggle for power in the cold war, the novel Lord of the Flies also has a struggle for power between a dictatorship and a democracy. In order to convey order, Golding uses the conch to symbolize how fragile society and its rules can be.
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...
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...n cannot accommodate the needs of everyone, it is doomed for collapse. The failure of the boys to follow rules and keep everything under control leads the boys’ society to a fail. When members of a civilization are more focused on themselves instead of the society, it becomes impossible for that society to be successful. In the novel Lord of the Flies, author William Golding depicts that perfectly.
Works Cited
Al-Saidi, Afaf. "Savagery and the Heart of Darkness in William Golding's Lord of the Flies." Studies in Literature and Language 4.1 (2012): 129-34. ProQuest. 15 Jan. 2014
Cheuse, Alan. "Hearts of Darkness ; 50 Years Later, 'Lord of the Flies' Still Resonates as it Examines the Loss of Innocence." Chicago Tribune Mar 21 2004: 1. ProQuest. 15 Jan. 2014 .
Chen, Dean. "Lord of the Flies." Voices From the Middle 12.4 (2005): 71. ProQuest. 15 Jan. 2014 .
Authority plays a vital role in the modern world through contrasting forms of government and the struggle for power between leaders. The leader of a society asserts power over its citizens with the aim to create the laws, which hold the society together. Once authority is demolished within a community, the power spreads to its citizens in which total chaos collectively overtakes the society. The process of law-making and a struggle for power takes precedence in William Golding’s allegorical novel, Lord of the Flies, through the conch shell found upon the shore. The conch grants superiority to one member of the group over the others, it is used to call assemblies and assists in choosing the speakers during important meetings. When the conch
D.H. Lawrence once said, “This is the very worst wickedness, that we refuse to acknowledge the passionate evil that is in us. This makes us secret and rotten.” Sir William Golding tells about the evil and sadistic things that can be expressed throughout humanity in his novel, Lord of the Flies. Lord of the flies is a translation of a Hebrew name for Satan, Beelzebub. In the novel, William Golding portrays the boys’ descent from civilization to savagery through the following symbols: the conch shell, Piggy’s glasses, and the Lord of the Flies.
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, at first glance, is an incredibly dark read. However, that trait evaporates after one's first cursory read. Once it's text is more thoroughly perused, a pattern of optimism erupts between passages. If one dares to dive deeper into the meaning behind the book, many reasons surface. For example, the story, all in all, had a happy ending. Also, the themes were only represented among a very small pool of data. Lastly, the representation of evil in the book insinuates even greater things of goodness.
In the novel The Lord of the flies, William Golding illustrates the decline from innocence to savagery through a group of young boys. In the early chapters of The Lord of the Flies, the boys strive to maintain order. Throughout the book however, the organized civilization Ralph, Piggy, and Simon work diligently towards rapidly crumbles into pure, unadulterated, savagery. The book emphasized the idea that all humans have the potential for savagery, even the seemingly pure children of the book. The decline of all civilized behavior in these boys represents how easily all order can dissolve into chaos. The book’s antagonist, Jack, is the epitome of the evil present in us all. Conversely, the book’s protagonist, Ralph, and his only true ally, Piggy, both struggle to stifle their inner
In his novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding presents a conch shell representing the order of civilization. He uses this symbol to effectively portray the theme that humans are inherently evil and have savage desires, shown through the decline from discipline and peace among the boys on the deserted island. In the novel, civilization directly correlates to the boys’ past lives in England. Before coming to the island, there were adults present who maintained order by enforcing rules and punishing those who did not follow them. However on the island, the conch, representing this society, is a powerful object that demands the respect of the boys in a similar way that the adults do. As time passes, the conch’s influence over the boys weakens and ultimately all forms of civilization are rejected.
Lord of the Flies was written in the early 1950’s by William Golding. Golding wrote this allegorical novel in England when World War II was happening and Stalinism in Russia was at its peak. Lord of the Flies attracted a cult of followers, especially among the youth of the post- World War II generation (“Golding”). People thought that his book was too harsh, but what they didn’t realize was the true essence of how the war was really like. The war showed the good and evil side of everyone and it made people turn against one another and were no longer in a civilized manner. “What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?” he wondered due to the experiences that he had encountered as a British naval officer during this time. This effected that the worst in humanity would prevail, and that many so called decent minded people would be easily and willingly influenced to act in terrible ways towards one another causing conflict between civilization and savagery.
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.
Olsen, Kirstin. "Literary Analysis." , "The Ignoble Savage." Understanding Lord of the Flies: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. 14-15, 35-35. Print.
"Review: Second look at William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies'." All Things Considered 29 Mar. 2004.Literature Resource Center. Web. 8 May 2014.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies exemplifies man’s capacity to unveil his innate primal nature when there is a breakdown of social order and a thirst for power. The characters of his novel portray the monstrosity of evil which dwells within human beings. For instance, Kunwar’s analytical essay about Golding’s novel states, “Though the young kids are in a place which is far from corruption, a place with no outside infl...
This paper will explore the three elements of innate evil within William Golding's, Lord of the Flies, the change from civilization to savagery, the beast, and the battle on the island. Golding represents evil through his character's, their actions, and symbolism. The island becomes the biggest representation of evil because it's where the entire novel takes place. The change from civilization to savagery is another representation of how easily people can change from good to evil under unusual circumstances. Golding also explores the evil within all humans though the beast, because it's their only chance for survival and survival instinct takes over. In doing so, this paper will prove that Lord of the Flies exemplifies the innate evil that exists within all humans.
At the beginning of Lord of the Flies, the boys create a democratic government. As the story progresses, the initial democracy on the island is ignored, and a dictatorship rises in its place. This dictatorship fails to keep the boys in order. The author, William Golding, shows that without the institution of a strong government and set of rules people will become impulsive and seek instant gratification. In the absence of order, people tend not to become disciplined of their own accord, but rather dissolve into destructive chaos.
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.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is an author’s painting of the evil that resides in all of the human race. The tropical island setting presents an environment free from civil order introducing a battle ground for the war of good and evil. Showing different side of human nature one can ponder the question “What would I do?” Golding explains the good, bad and balance of human nature, revealing that in times of despair man can easily regress to a primitive state, leaving the strong willed to promote civil order, but often be extremely out numbered.
The shell drops and shatters into dozens of pieces, and so does Ralph’s group. Ralph’s tribe has always represented responsibility through rules and ideas of civilization so it shows what the shell represents when Jack says, “‘See? See? That’s what you’ll get! I mean that! There isn’t a tribe for you anymore! The conch is gone—‘“ (181). As soon as the conch shell is destroyed Jack says that there is not a tribe left due to only the conch breaking. It shows the relationship between the more sophisticated culture of Ralph’s tribe and the conch shell. And it is true, his tribe did end when he lost his piece of influence. But the conch shell also relates to another character, Piggy. When thinking of the shell Ralph can be easily brought to mind, but Piggy and the conch almost represent each other. Piggy is a civil thinker with a responsible mind that stayed by Ralph and respected the conch. So knowing that they represent each other it is important to note that at the exact moment Piggy dies, the shell shatters. As if at that very moment all order and civility on the island died. Looking at what happens next it is clear that savagery does take over, Ralph classifies everyone as savages, everybody is trying to hunt Ralph, and the entire inland of the island is torched to smoke him out. The savagery takes over the second the conch shell is gone, the order on the island died.