Lord of the Flies
Analysis
Lord of the Flies is a book about kids who get stranded on an
island because of an accident
on their airplane. It was written by a British author, Sir William Golding. The
accident will cause a “scar” on them forever by changing how they are. The word “scar” is used to by the author to foreshadow a
lasting effect this adventure will have on the children. In the story most of
the kids go through a lot of changes, some even become savage. They also fight
for power and even start killing one another. This
desire leads them to destroy themselves and their hope. They set a destructive
fire on their source of food and shelter, the forest; destruction seems to not
know any limits for them. In this story the ideas of desire for power, the fear
of the unknown, fear of other people, anger, and jealousy are all explored.
Golding asks hard questions of what he calls "the darkness of man's heart." He does this by using
a lot of symbolism to illustrate his idea of what causes the darkness of man's heart.
In the beginning, Ralph and Piggy, the first
to be presented in the story, are wondering where they are. They also ask
themselves if they are the only kids on the island. Ralph gets in the water and
is talking when suddenly Piggy notices a shell, which really is a conch. It
symbolizes order and civilization due to its power to create order through
organized meetings. Immediately after it is found it is marked with being an
object of power, when Piggy says, "We can use this to call the
others." The others respond to the call of the conch, which means it influences
what the others do. Although it took some time for him to blow the conch; he
did and suddenly, "a
child had appeared among the palm trees." This conch is what makes Ralph look like a better leader when the
children decide to vote for one, "But there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out;
there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most
powerfully, there was the conch." It is the person with the conch who will be able to talk, as decreed by Ralph,
"I'll give the conch to the next person to speak…And they won't be interrupted. Except by me."
This demonstrates the power of the conch over the tribe. In chapter 11 the conch explodes “into a thousand white fragments and ceases to
exist." The destruction of the shell provides an
illustration of how uncivilized the island is. This occurs after authority and
Ralph's leadership end completely. The power then shifts to Jack.
Ralph decides,
after they confirm that they are on a deserted island, to make a fire and get
the attention of passing boats and be saved. The hope of being saved fuels the desire to
start a fire. As Ralph says, "we can help them find us," referring to sailors. This fire symbolizes the hope of rescue and
return to order and
civilization. "If a ship
comes near the island they may not notice us," so we must make a smoke at the top of the mountain. "We
must make a fire." They do, but
the fire won’t last long because
the kids can not keep the fire going. When Jack is in charge of the fire he
ignores the importance of a signal fire and loses
them the chance of being saved, "The horizon stretched,
impersonal once more, barren of all but the faintest trace of smoke"
because it was Jack who was leader of those who kept the
fire going, but who thought it more important to go hunt. It then symbolizes loss of hope. Realizing
the truth in these words, all help with the fire, but then Jack starts convincing some to join him in
hunting. And so the children start to be stripped from their hope of rescue because hunting is more
fun. Ralph says, "I'd like to put on war-paint and be a savage." Because of this, their
possibilities of being saved obviously decrease. Once Piggy suggests reigniting
the fire, it then symbolizes a restoration of hope.
The
spectacles symbolize comfort and dependability due to their ability make fire.
It is in the beginning that dependability of the glasses is demonstrated when
Jack says, "His specs, use them as burning glasses." Only with his
glasses could they have been able to light the wood for the fire. Jack’s
hunting group takes the fire from the fire-makers. Once Jack's tribe takes the
glasses, it then symbolizes a shift in power
The most important symbol to the theme is the
"Lord of The Flies.” It is the pig who I believe is the evil side of the
kids; it represents evil death and humanity’s darker impulses. Simon confronts
the "Lord of the Flies," which tries to convince him to forget what
he has seen. The dead pig also creates an overflow of wild emotion in the
tribe. For instance, the boys chant a warlike song, "Kill the pig. Cut her
throat. Bash her in," and carry the carcass of a pig.
Jack and the other boys behave like savages,
demonstrated by the appearance; dirty, half-naked, and with paint on their
faces. The narrator refers to the painted boys repeatedly as savages,
"Demoniac figures with faces of white and green and red rushed out."
They were attacking Ralph’s
group, taking fire from them, so they could cook the pigs. After the raid,
"Presently Ralph rose to
his feet, looking at the place where the savages had vanished."
The cruelty by Jack and the faithfulness of
his followers cause Jack to
become god-like. An example of this is symbolically noted in the pig's head on a
stake. The symbolic pig's head is Jack's beastlike
nature, while the flies around it are his followers who swarm about his appealing action, "the
pile of guts was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw." All of
Jack's power resides in the fear of a beast on the island. An example of this
fear is noted in the tribe's beating and killing of
Simon, "Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill—Kill the beast! Cut..."
The tribe's irrational fear causes them to act in a manner that supports Jack's
position of warlike protection. Another example of Jack's control by fear is in his denouncing Ralph's leadership and
demanding he be the leader to fight the beast. The existence of a beast supports Jack's claim to
leadership and tribal status. The tribe forms in the face of fear, but the real
beast in the novel is Jack and his tribe.
Symbolism of the tribe and beast, and
symbolism depicted in characters, all help establish the theme in Lord of the Flies that the insight into one's soul is developed through
object symbolism. The cruelty that humans are capable of is seen in everyday
life. The cruelty that humans are capable of doing in the absence of order is
horrific and everyone can display his beast without consequences.v
