Symbolism of Conformity in Lord of the Flies
Conformity is typically used to describe action in accordance to prevailing social standards, attitudes and practices. In many cases, the act of conforming, can psychologically include the involvement for one to change their behaviour in order to fit in with certain groups. Frequently, one’s conformity is in stake as a societal standards are priority for the sake of fitting into societal norms, which can lead to the loss of one’s personal desire which in the long run can decrease a person’s talent and identity. In William Golding’s novel, ‘Lord of the Flies’, the island in the novel is symbolized as a perfect microcosm in relation to the real world at the time of publishment. ‘Lord of the Flies’
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has an emphasis on on how individuals conform to societal pressure, which results in the loss of identity with examples in the novel being eerily similar to the real world. The boys stranded on the island conform to countless aspects of the British government with the election of chief and the use of the conch shell to the establishment of democracy among their minute group. However, overtime, the group of boys had the urge/desire to have more fun rather than establishing order, leading to loss in aspects of power maintained due to the lack of knowledge the boys possesed, lack of their ability to withstand their id-like desires, and lack of discipline to establish the very government they were demanding to establish initially, similar to that of Karl Marx’s communist beliefs. With the constant increase of support to democracy this led to the downhill plummet of the state where communism was born to initially become a better alternative than democracy, leading to something similar to that of Joseph Stalin’s leadership during the cold war against the US, similarly to how the boys resorted further and further to savagery. Similarly to the real world, all these conflicting values began conflict within their isolated society where they conform within the two ideals. The conch shell in Golding’s novel is the perfect embodiment of democracy, as it is used as a way for the group to communicate amongst one another. In the beginning of the novel the conch shell is discovered and used to keep order within their society of boys. The boys attempted to resemble their government similar to that of British parliament as Ralph is elected as chief. Democracy was an essential thing for the boys to survive on the island. Ralph tried to form a democratic nation from the beginning using the conch as a symbol. Everyone listened when the conch was blown. The system was working but after a couple months people started to get different ideas of ruling. Jack, who was basically the leader of the underworld tried to replace democracy with a strong dictatorship. Since the idea of a new type of government, democracy was losing power quickly. The rules and regulation to an extent similarly to the real world led to many conforming and losing their very own ideas. While the boys had complete control over handling work and whatnot, leading to the boys resorting to urges of being more laid back which brought disruption of power because of the lack of discipline they had.
The boys desperately tried to resemble their past societies’ political system but began to fail with the lack of knowledge they possessed. Additionally with the breaking of the conch shell it symbolizes the end of civil rule and marks the beginning of a new uprising. Jack’s new comup of control. With the power of democracy diminishing among the boys, another belief/value was bound to be produced. Likewise, in ‘Lord of the Flies,’ the two main characters had a clash of values. The conch shell was an item of the past and a new ideal emerges via Jack, while Ralph embodies the world view similar to that of democracy where he allows other to voice their opinions, vote on issues and topics and have a choice as to who should be leader. Jack attempts to conform other on his new ideals which closely resemble that of communism where there is one divine leader. During the group’s time on the island the two boys conform to either beliefs where the two leaders’ actions depend upon the conformity of their alliances. Democracy is eventually destroyed as the conch shell, the groups embodiment of democracy, is broken. Whilst this occurs, Jack orders the murder of Ralph where the other boys are willing, yet not willing, to do the deed as Jack’s hunger for power leaves the boys to forget their individual ideas and goals. Ralph doesn’t use his role as chief to get out doing manual labour, instead he works hard at making shelters for the group of boys. He quickly balances control by open meetings where contribution is needed to get potential advice out of others. Jack however, is authoritative, dictoral, ruthless, with his rash decisions (one of them being the order of killing Ralph and not putting certain priorities
straight). The cold war was a political battle fought by two seperate ideals, the USSR communists and the American democracy. With these events occurring whilst Golding was producing his novel, it is definitive that this had an effect on his work. In the novel, the two main characters, Jack and Ralph, had similarly conflicting views. Golding uses the Cold war as an inspiration for readers to connect the situation of the boys on the island and real world events to grip a better understanding of the text. Ralph had values similar to democracy whereas Jack had values similar to that of communism as stated early with his sheer savergy and authoritarian control over other in the group. All in all society demonstrates through countless examples that people are bound to conform with similar ideals closely to theirs. Without a doubt Golding took inspiration from real life events and in his novel. One of these events notably being the cold war, between the Ussr communism and American democracy
The Lord of the Flies is a gruesome story about young boys stranded on an island, who underwent a transformation from polite British choir boys to savage hooligans. One of the main difficulties the boys face during their adventures upon the island, is their method of government, they either follow the path of Ralph, the democratic leader whose main focus is to escape the despairing island; or Jack a power-hungry monarchical leader who won't ever take no for an answer. The two boys are constantly bickering and arguing over who deserves the leader-position. We all understand Ralph wants to be leader so that he can ensure that the boys will return back home, but in Jack's case, it is a constant mystery to us about why he wants power over the other children. But we do get much small hints from the author, William Golding, that Jack's biggest fear among the other children on the island is public humiliation. This becomes more and more evident the farther on into the book, and his fear seems to be what persuades him to reach for a powerful position.
The book Lord of the Flies by William Golding is an exhilarating novel that is full of courage, bravery, and manhood. It is a book that constantly displays the clash between two platoons of savage juveniles mostly between Jack and Ralph who are the main characters of the book. The Kids become stranded on an island with no adults for miles. The youngsters bring their past knowledge from the civilized world to the Island and create a set of rules along with assigned jobs like building shelters or gathering more wood for the fire. As time went on and days past some of the kids including Jack started to veer off the rules path and begin doing there own thing. The transformation of Jack from temperately rebellious to exceptionally
Ralph has several positive characteristics but he also has several crucial weaknesses that prevent him from being the perfect leader. In chapter one the boys decide who they want to be leader. The boys decide on Ralph, “”Vote for a chief!”…every hand outside the choir except Piggy’s was raised immediately. Then Piggy, too, raised his hand grudgingly into the air.” (Golding 18-19). From the very beginning Ralph is seen as the leader. He becomes the one the boys look up to and depend on to make decisions in their best interest. Ralph has natural leadership skills. Landing on the island with no adults to take control, the boys chose to follow the one boy who seems to be doing something productive, Ralph. An example of Ralph being purposeful and productive is when he blows the conch to get the attention of all the boys on the island and bring them together for a meeting. When Jack and his choir find the other boys gathered he asks where the man with the trumpet is, Ralph replies, “There’s no man with a trumpet. We’re having a meeting. Want to join?” (Golding 16). Ralph asks Jack and the choir boys to join the meeting because he wants all the boys to work together so they can be rescued as soon as possible. Other than his leadership and purposeful qualities, Ralph is also hard working. When tasks are given out to the boys, such as building shelters, hunting, gathering food, the hard work of most boys turns into play and exploration leaving Ralph to do most of the work by himself with little help from others. When the other boys gave up on their tasks Ralph continued working, this proves his hard work. Leadership, purposeful, and hard working are all positive qualities that helped Ralph succeed in the novel, but Ralph also had some majo...
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a peculiar story about boys stranded on an island, and the plot and characters relate to many prevailing events and problems. A specific problem that is currently occurring is the mutual hatred and enmity between North Korea and South Korea. This is a current event, but the North and South’s hostility has been ongoing since 1945, when Korea was split into North and South, Communist and Capitalist. When the 38th parallel(Border between North and South Korea) was created, Kim Il-Sung ruled the North, and Syngman Rhee ruled the South. As of now, a power hungry dictator, Kim Jong-un rules the north, and an optimistic president who wants to see change was recently elected in the South, named Moon Jae-in. In Golding’s book, Ralph is a character who aimed to keep everyone alive and to stay together. Jack on the other hand, wanted to have fun and hunt, and although he also wanted to be rescued, he made no effort to help. In this sense, North Korea is a clear representation of the character Jack and his quest for power, and opposingly, South Korea is a representation of Ralph and his strive for order, democracy, and civilization.
This democratic society does not last very long as the children (especially Jack) have a lack of respect for the conch and the rules. We can see this when Jack decides, “We don’t need the conch anymore, we know who should say things.” As the conch represents democracy, we can see that civilisation on the island is breaking up and savagery is starting to take over. We can also see a break up in society when Jack says, “Bollocks to the rules!” Here we can see that Jack contradicts himself while managing to diminish the assembly and the power of the conch.
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...
Importance of Leadership Leadership is something that stands out in people. In a group, people tend to look for the strongest person to follow. However, the strongest person may not be the best choice to follow. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Ralph and Jack each have leadership qualities. Jack is probably the stronger of the two; however, Ralph is a better leader.
America should be a place where being an individual, expressing your thoughts and opinions, shouldn't matter, sadly that is not the case. People are scared to be themselves which leads to them conforming to what people want and what's "normal" in society. As John F. Kennedy said, "Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth", conforming to others means they are controlling you because of this you cannot grow and have your own thoughts and opinions because you are always trying to reach that expectation. You remain under the direction of who you are conforming to and who others want you to be that along the way you lose sight of who you really are and cannot flourish. I whole heartedly agree with this quote because people need
Lord of the Flies is a novel written by William Golding in 1954 about a group of young British boys who have been stranded alone together on an island with no adults. During the novel the diverse group of boys struggle to create structure within a society that they constructed by themselves. Golding uses many unique literary devices including characterization, imagery, symbolism and many more. The three main characters, Ralph, Piggy, and Jack are each representative of the three main literary devices, ethos, logos, and pathos. Beyond the characterization the novel stands out because of Golding’s dramatic use of objective symbolism, throughout the novel he uses symbols like the conch, fire, and Piggy’s glasses to represent how power has evolved and to show how civilized or uncivilized the boys are acting. It is almost inarguable that the entire novel is one big allegory in itself, the way that Golding portrays the development of savagery among the boys is a clear representation of how society was changing during the time the novel was published. Golding is writing during
My Essay is about Ralph and and his Motivation’s and did he contribute to the tragedy in any way. Also about if he prevented any of the deaths and what would I have done differently in his situation. I defend Ralph’s actions as leader, He had tried his best but everyone fell apart. Did Ralph contribute to the tragedies? Ralph had tried his best but he was struggling at handling the problems on the island, He was unaware of the boy’s and what was going on. He had tried to contribute to all of the tragedies but there was too much going on around him it was just hard. What was wrong with Ralph too was that jack ignores everything and try’s to do his own thing the whole time instead of working together with everyone. All Jack wants is his way or his way to him there is no other way. So yes Ralph had try to contribute to the tragedies but Jack and other boys had just did what they wanted to do instead of doing what they should have done. So Ralph had really struggled dealing with everybody. In my opinion Ralph was doing a good job, Yes he kind of gave up for a little b...
The Lord of the Flies, in its’ most basic form, is the struggle between two sides of humanity. We have Ralph, who is the epitome of civilization, democracy, and rationality. And yet there is a flip-side to the coin of society. Jack Merridew is everything that Ralph is not. He is savagery, he is dictatorship, and he is irrationality. Jack spotlights Ralph’s strengths, through his own errors and weaknesses. And yet he also shows Ralph’s naiveté at times. Ralph and Jack complement each other throughout the novel, and indeed they thoroughly illuminate the meaning of the work. They are civilization versus savagery. They are democracy versus dictatorship. They are rationality versus irrationality. And it is just a matter of time before one of them overwhelms the other.
All around mankind's history, it has been seen of both civilized and uncivilized humans,from the day a human is born one is hardwired with specific personality traits.Traits both good and bad and traits that may have been influenced or personally derived. But,either good or bad humans have the capacity to perform whichever .This concept is seen in William Golding’s piece of Lord of the flies in which provides a clear and justified understanding of how human’s conduct.The novel delineates a story of a group of young english boys during a war,who are on an unlivable island with just themselves and no authority.William Golding reveals that when humans are removed from authority man's evil instincts are revealed thus causing civility to fall.This message is exemplified by the boys who demoralize aspects of human nature beyond civilized humans as they are put in a society where there are no rules nor civility set.
As the story opens, the boys are stranded on the island without any type of authority and must fend for themselves. A meeting is held and the chief, Ralph, is quickly named. A reader at once can notice there is already a power struggle between Jack and Ralph but this is overlooked when Jack says rational and sensible remarks about what should be done. The stability of civilization is still apparent when Jack says, “I agree with Ralph. We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything. So we’ve got to do the right things,” (Golding 42). The boys are still influenced by the restraints they learned from a controlled society. Joseph Conrad asserts that “there exists a certain ‘darkness of man’s heart’ that is suppressed by the light of civilization” (Introduction to Lord of the Flies 2). “Although Golding suggests the harmony of an ideal society, he does not indicate any faith in its creation” (Kennard 234). The more meetings that are held the more futile they become. “ ’We have lots of assemblies. Everybody enjoys speaking and being together. We decide things. But they don’t get done,’ ” (Golding 79). The boys realize that there are no punishments for what they do and disregard their priorities. “The idea that the absence of the restraints of civilization can lead to a subversion towards savagery” (Introduction to Lord of the Flies 2). The makeshift society that the boys have created is already starting to weaken.
“Adults run the world; and there is war, and enmity, and destruction unending.” (Peter David) Throughout the novel, the boys in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies consistently admire the life of adults. Ironically, Golding’s imaginary island is a microcosm of the adult world- both destined to be destroyed. Golding reveals this microcosm through conflict and characterization.
People are privileged to live in an advanced stage of development known as civilization. In a civilization, one’s life is bound by rules that are meant to tame its savage natures. A humans possesses better qualities because the laws that we must follow instill order and stability within society. This observation, made by William Golding, dictates itself as one of the most important themes of Lord of the Flies. The novel demonstrates the great need for civilization ion in life because without it, people revert back to animalistic natures.