Motifs In Lord Of The Flies

The novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding may seem simple but has much deeper meaning when you look at the over arching theme. When a group of british boys are stranded on a tropical island they soon start to work together to survive but soon start to forget what they had learned in a civilized environment.There are many meanings and motifs in the novel that elude to even more complex thought about the story and they include civilization, weather, and the games they play have a more complex meaning.

This novel is based around the battle between civilization and savagery, there are motifs for both but civilization is shown quite often. Such as the conch which gathered the boys when they first got to the island, when you wanted to speak you had to hold the conch shell and when was blown the kids would conduct meetings. Towards the end of the novel the conch is destroyed and that is when all civilization has been destroyed and the boys are left with

instinctive savagery. The colors in the novel also allude to more meaning such as the opening pages included pink on the kid's face and the rock where they had their meetings was pink and represented order and civilization but this soon disappeared when the boys had given up meetings and made someone there chief to follow.
The weather is a big part of the setting and atmosphere of the novel, it can bring up certain feelings that have a different meaning. The weather does not stay static throughout the book it changes to foreshadow and create a certain tension. When the kids arrive at the island they are greeted with warm air and blue skies, but when violence is about to erupt the weather builds up to a huge storm that is also showing the tension the characters increase also. Then when the storm arrives the kids breakout into a violent fit before murdering a innocent kid. The weather could also be said to represent the boys hatred and anger.
The games that the kids play is a also a very big part of the story because it shows how the boys change and become more and more violent.

Early in the novel a kid named Roger is destroying other people's sandcastles and throwing rocks to miss at other kids, this shows how he could hit the other kids but civilization is stopping him from hurting the kid. It then escalates to lighting a signal fire so they can be rescued but then turns into a huge blaze that burns down the forests on half the island. The kids don't take it as a serious danger they take it as a game and pay no mind to it. The boys begin hunting which of course they think is a tag game but with killing animals for food and this escalates to them pretending to hunt another boy and soon turns almost violent but they stop themselves. To the peak game of all they are dancing, chanting in a circle and when a boy runs into the middle they close in scratching,clawing, biting killing the boy and of course all the kids can remember is that it was just a

game.
In conclusion there are many meanings to the things that happen around the characters in the novel and it is something to pay attention to. Such as the idea of civilization being represented by a conch or a color. The weather can foreshadow how the boys are feeling or what is about to happen and can set a mood about the novel. Lastly the games and how they escalate from innocent and fun to killing other kids by instinct. This shows how people can devolve into savages if met with fear in their hearts.