Chaos In Lord Of The Flies Analysis

Lord of the Flies is an intriguing novel about a group of English boys who are stranded on a remote island during World War II after their plane was shot down. The schoolboys quickly use the resources they find and create a temporary form of order. As they continue to stay on the island, their proper English ways quickly turn into savage like instincts. In William Golding’s, Lord of the Flies, Golding uses the conch, the Beast, leadership, murder, and fire to show that without rules there is chaos.

Golding uses the conch shell, which Ralph and Piggy find, to demonstrate a source of leadership and order within the civilization. As the conch becomes a source of authority and assembly, it “becomes no less than the basic challenge to the Tribe to choose between democracy and anarchy, civilization and savagery” (Gregor). As order decreases within the civilization the boys are forced to choose between Ralph, who symbolizes order, and Jack, who symbolizes savagery and chaos. The boys quickly join forces with Jack, which is their first step of their decline into savagery. One of their final falls into savagery was when Roger rolled the boulder into Piggy and “the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist” (Golding 181). By the conch breaking, order on the island was completely gone and the physical violence began to increase as chaos started to occur. In Kathleen Woodward’s article, “On Aggression: William Golding’s Lord of the Flies,” Woodward says that “children require strict supervision and constant discipline, for without these, they pose a serious threat to the adult world” (Woodward). As the rules for the adult world were made to keep order so were the rules and tasks that Ralph had assigned. Rules are cru...

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...eakens, their hope weakens and chaos becomes their main source for living.

In Lord of the Flies, a group of well brought up English boys are pushed into the task of surviving on an island by themselves. In the beginning, order, leadership, and fire are the only things that help the boys realize that there is hope for being rescued. As the boys’ time on the island continues to increase, they become more tempted to let their inner beast within them take over. As order is lost, the boys try to cope with the fact that they may be on the island for awhile. So, they revert to savage ways in order to cope with it. Their schoolboy behaviors become non-existent and chaos breaks loose. The conch shell, the Beast, leadership, murder, and fire are all five main elements that help lead the boys into their plug to savagery because without rules and discipline their will be chaos.