•Piggy’s glasses and his limited vision are important in the novel. How are they significant, and what themes do they represent?
Piggy’s glasses play an important role in showing Piggy’s personality. The stereotype of a person with glasses is that they are smart and intelligent. These Glasses are very important in showing Piggy’s characteristics, as these glasses symbolize his wisdom. In the novel, Ralph even admits that he cannot think like Piggy. Piggy’s glasses also symbolize that he is weaker and more nurturing than the other boys who just want to go hunting.
William Golding has been very clever in pointing out this by means of what he looks like. Once the glasses were broken this was also showing the state of social order on the island (since Jack punched Piggy and broke his glasses the social order dropped). As the condition of the glasses got worse so did the level of social order of the boys.
The glasses that Piggy wears are also very important to the boy’s survival and getting off the island, as the glasses create fire. Along with fire comes warmth and smoke. The smoke is a very vital part as the ongoing ships can see the smoke and then the ship can rescue the boys.
Piggy’s glasses are also a symbol of science because they create fire. This symbolism of science has been occurring since they first landed on the island and made a fire though the lenses.
As the glasses represent science, I believe that Piggy can as well because the boys find what science produced was useful, but they did not care about the science involved.
Ralph and the rest of the boys did not like Piggy as much as they would like the next man. The boys did not treat him as fair as each other and thought that he was useless. Soon Ralph came around to realize just how much he depends on Piggy and his wisdom.
• Provide a definition of irony and select three places where it is used in the novel.
The Australian English dictionary defines irony as, “mildly sarcastic use of words to imply the opposite of what is said”.
The first use of irony would be when Jack wants to kill a pig when he first landed on the island.
Piggy was the one boy in the novel who has all the knowledge. Despite his asthma and obese problem, Piggy never failed to contribute his cerebral and intelligent ideas. He came up with all the ideas on how to survive and tried to keep the group organized and civilized. The glasses of Piggy symbolized his knowledge and smartness.
...ing the boys know that if they do not stay prim and proper, rescue will be the last thing on their minds. Piggy is the brains of the group, he is the one with all the answers. When the boys first start the fire they want smoke, but Piggy is the only one who knows why, “Course we have. ’Cos the smoke’s a signal and we can’t be rescued if we don’t have smoke” (Golding 173). Ralph’s boys all just want to get off the island at this point, they are tierd of fighting Jack and his sneaky devious ways of getting what he wants. By stealing the glasses he has an edge on everyone and the power of fire, so Piggy is trying to come up with a way to keep the smoke signal going so they can still attract any passing ships attention. With all of Piggy’s genius ideas he shares with the boys to stay safe and civil on the island, he really is not paid back with the respect he deserves.
..., the biggest being his relationship with Ralph. He is Ralph’s right hand man and supports him throughout the entire novel. Piggy is always there for Ralph even when he does not agree with Ralph’s decisions. Piggy also proves his loyalty through his relationship with the ‘littluns’. Piggy becomes a father like figure to the younger boys and is always looking out for them when no one else does. Many of the boys on the island do not see the good traits Piggy has because they are so focused on his physical flaws. Piggy is not the most athletic out of the boys and is described as shorter than Ralph, fat, wears glasses and has asthma. His physical abilities keep him from doing tasks that require anything physical such as swimming, running, climbing, carrying heavy items and building the shelters. Many boys see Piggy as a setback; they do not see how valuable truly he is.
When Piggy’s glasses break in half, it symbolizes the boy's descent into savageness. Glasses, by definition¹, are “a pair of lenses used to correct or assist defective eyesight for an individual with vision problems.” Obviously, these glasses are only effective when the lenses are not broken, and this principle also applies in The Lord of the Flies. In The Lord of the Flies, the goal of the boys is to survive, and get rescued off of the island. To get rescued off of the island and therefore survive, Ralph decides that the boys need a fire, to make a smoke signal so passing ships or planes can spot them. They use the lenses of Piggy’s glasses to start this fire. When Jack lets this fire go out when he is out hunting for a pig, Ralph gets very angry, because the passing ship could have rescued them. This leads to the first fight as a result of the boy's’ newfound savageness. This fight leads to Piggy’s glasses breaking for the first time. Piggy’s glasses break again when Jack’s group steals them in a bid to start a fire of their own. “I just take the conch to say this. I can’t see no more and I got to get my glasses back.
The kids' fear of not being rescued from the island led the group to the top of the mountain to make signal fires. They used Piggy's glasses in order to make that fire:
...ally it shows us that this was not a place intended for human life. By the end of the novel they have set the entire island on fire. Piggy’s glasses breaking means that he cannot see the world as he once did, and that his insight is slowly fading. Piggy however remains himself until his death.
Piggy’s physical description is an enormous factor in the book. Although his physical appearance doesn't change throughout the book it continues to affect him until the end. In the beginning
It is this desire for docorum that underlines Piggy's belief that they will all be saved from the island - the only person to believe this will happen. Therefore Piggy himself becomes symbolic of the boys' hope to be saved from the island. The hope literally comes from his glasses. Piggy's spectacles are taken from him and used to start smoke signals. Without glasses Piggy's sight, like the boys' vision of what is in their best interests, becomes blurred.
When Piggy is clearly able to see with the help of the glasses the boys are still fairly civilized. For example, at one of their first meetings, the boys decide that they "can't have everybody talking at once" and that they "have to have there hands up' like at school" (Golding, 33). However, after some time passes, the boys become more concerned with slaughtering a pig than with being rescued and returning to civilization. Returning, from a successful hunt in the jungle chanting "Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood," Ralph and Piggy attempt to explain to the boys that having meat for their meals is not as important as keeping the signal fire burning (Golding, 69). With anger, Jack knocks Piggy glasses off from his face, smashing one of the lenses against rocks and obviously impairing his vision. William Golding uses Piggy's glasses as a symbol of civilization and when they break it is like that the
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
These glasses are very symbolic. They don’t just represent Piggy, but all the boys and how they must survive on the island although they do not realize its importance yet. When Piggy first came to the island, his glasses were spotless and perfect with no damage, just like the boys were. Each one came to the island as someone else and left completely changed. They represent intelligence and intellectual pursuit. Piggy is probably the brightest of the stranded boys on the island in Lord of the Flies, and his glasses help to set him apart from the others. He’s symbolized as a grown-up figure that has common sense. He is the most rational boy in the group; making his glasses also symbolize logical reasoning within society. But he was completely disrespected as Jacks says in the novel, “ ‘you’re talking too much fatty.’ ” (Golding 18) The glasses don’t just represent Piggy and what he stands for, but for everyone else as
One night Jack and two of his tribe members raid the huts of Ralph, Piggy and Samneric. They stole Piggy's glasses, which only had one glass anyway, now making him blind in both eyes. The next day Ralph, Piggy and Samneric travel to the other side of the Island to get the glasses back.
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...
Piggy is fat, has asthma and needs glasses to see. In a kids world he
Two important symbols of civilization, the conch and the glasses, are closely followed throughout the action. As the civilized life breaks up on the island, the glasses are broken and stolen, and the conch is crushed. Piggy, who wears the glasses and carries the conch, is killed.