Seeing Through the Broken Glass Thesis Statement: William Golding represents the value of Piggy's glasses in Lord of the Flies through clarity, hope and intelligence, even though the glasses are broken, they still work. Piggy is the only one on the island who can see clearly, his glasses portray that for him. Piggy’s glasses do not only help him literally see, but they also help with clarity and staying focused on the task at hand, “Ralph remember what we came for. The fire. My specs” (Golding 177). Piggy is reminding Ralph of their task at Castle Rock, to get the specs and the fire back. Piggy is focused on the task at hand and wants to get the job done the way he in visions it. He wants to get the job done and he wants to get out of there. Piggy is bringing clarity to the boys, “Which is better-to be a pack of painted indians like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is? ...rules and agree or hunt and kill? ...law and rescue or hunting and breaking things up?” (Golding 180). Piggy is trying to talk sense into the savages and he is making them reflect on their actions comparing them to both camps. He is trying to bring common sense back into the boys. He is helping them see what they have done because their vision is a little blurred from being on the island for so long. Piggy realizes the situation is getting tense and tells his camp and Ralph that it is time to take care of the situation. Piggy takes over at the assembly and puts jack in his place , “I just take the conch to say this. I can’t see no more and I got to get my glasses back. Awful things has been done on this island. I voted for you for chief. He’s the only one who ever got anything done. So now you speak, Ralph, and tell us what. Or else –” (Golding 170). The da... ... middle of paper ... ...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.
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.
( Golding, 87) When everyone else was afraid, he just thought that " if there's something wrong, there's someone to put it right". ( Golding 87) This shows that Piggy was levelheaded and he knew that the only thing to fear on the island were themselves. This is like he knew that the cause of breakdown in the society would be from themselves. While piggy and Ralph were able to keep order almost successfully, others would leave because they were in to not having rules and just having fun without actual work and effort being put in to help them along. Ralph says, "Piggy, are you the only one left? No there's Samn'Eric." This is later in the book and it shows how people are able to ignore the rules. Only the moral and honest people stayed with Ralph and Piggy To try and be saved. The rest were bloodthirsty savages and left with Jack to hunt and Kill. Piggy also really respected Ralph. When Ralph was upset with the "accident" that happened with Simon, Piggy knew that even though Ralph was doing wrong things, he would work things out. Piggy helps to show how unnecessary it is to dwell on these matters saying "What good're you doing talking like that". (Golding, 156) Piggy knew no one would listen to himself, so he
...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 is known for being the most intellectual and reasonable out of the boys. While the other boys are off fooling around and dreaming about their next adventure, Piggy is using reason to plan an organized method of survival on the island where everyone is satisfied. For example, while the other boys were exploring the island, Simon came up with an idea and said, “‘I’ve been thinking,” he said, “about a clock. We could make a sundial. We could put a stick in the sand, and then—’” (Golding 90). Although the boys can rule using any form of government on the island, Piggy attempts to create a civilized and orderly environment by advising Ralph to implement a democratic state. Despite his weak appearance, Piggy has a very strong moral compass and sense of self assurance, meaning, he’s very confident in the moral choices he makes. Since he bases his actions and way of thinking on reason and justice, he has a tendency to believe everyone should follow and share his methods because “rules are rules.” As seen when electing a leader, Piggy believed that because the conch and name system were his ideas, he should have been voted as leader, resulting in “Every hand outside the choir except Piggy’s was raised immediately. Then Piggy, too, raised his hand grudgingly into the air.” (Golding 29). Due to his strong confidence, Piggy is not afraid to act upon his beliefs and what is right, even if it may not be a popular
Once this happened Piggy started to care less and less about the boys and more about his own safety and getting himself off the island with or without the boys. Jack had taken Piggy’s glasses to start his own fire and Piggy was very upset and he took Ralph and the twins over to Jack’s tribe and demanded his glasses back, but Ralph got a little sidetracked so Piggy brought him back. “‘Ralph remember what we came for. The fire. My specs’”(177)
Initially, the boys carry on about in a civilized, systematic and fearless manner when first landing on the island. Ralph has just blown the conch and some small children responded to the sound by gathering at the source of the sound. Piggy is asking for their names. "The children gave him the same simple obedience that they had given to the man with megaphones"(Golding 18).The younger kids simply obey and respond to Piggy in the same way they would to an authoritative figure. The children's behavior towards piggy shows that they are still governed by civility and order. Furthermore, after blowing the conch, Ralph sees a group of boys walking in two parallel lines dressed in odd clothes. “T...
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.
Losing sight is a struggle for anyone, but Judy responds to this conflict, “Seeing isn’t believing. Believing is seeing” (The Santa Clause). Having special sight or intuition about situations, is a common theme in Lord of the Flies by William Golding and is exhibited when no one listens to Piggy, when Ralph only focuses on the long term, and when Simon can talk to the Beast, therefore, demonstrating that being able to understand things others can not leads to the character’s utter demise.
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
This first interaction foreshadowed consistent degradation toward Piggy. During the aforementioned feast, during which Simon offered Piggy food, Jack’s intention had been to let Piggy go hungry. Jack claimed “You didn’t hunt,” (74) despite Piggy not being the only boy uninvolved in procuring meat. Due to severe asthma, Piggy was unable to do strenuous work on the island. After the other boys gathered wood for a fire, Jack demeans him again, saying “A fat lot of good you tried,” (42) Jack was clearly unappreciative of Piggy’s condition. At one point Jack even insulted Ralph by stating that he “isn’t a proper chief,” (126) due to thinking and speaking similarly to Piggy. Later on, Jack struck Piggy, breaking a lens of the glasses which both afforded Piggy sight, and afford the ability to make fire on the island. Piggy’s sight, already hampered by the absent lens, was nearly nonexistent after Jack sent hunters to steal the remains of the specs during the night. Jack’s hatred for Piggy was due, in part, to his passion for order, a trait shared by Jack’s other enemy
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:
Piggy's literal function in this novel is to be the intellectual and logical thinker to counteract the emotional thinking of the other boys. From the beginning, Piggy viewed everything logically. He quickly came to the realization that the boys may be on the island for a long time, when he told Ralph "Nobody don't know we're here. Your dad don't know, nobody don't know" (9), contrary to Ralph's assumption that his father, who happened to be a naval officer, would simply come and rescue them. While Ralph became the natural leader based on his charisma, "what intelligence had been shown was traceable to Piggy" (18/19). However, it is unfortunate that this intelligence eventually led Piggy to his demise. Piggy's direct way of analyzing a situation and voicing his opinion tended to make him quite un...
Imagine a group of young boys who have just crash-landed on a deserted tropical island with no adults or supervision. William Golding showed in his ground breaking novel Lord of the Flies, what may happen in just those circumstances. In his very complicated and diverse novel Golding brings out many ideas and uses many literary devices. Above all others though comes symbolism of three main important objects being the conch, fire, and "Piggy's" eyeglasses. Through each of these three symbols Golding shows how the boys adapt and change throughout the novel. These symbols also help to show each of the boy's ideals on a variety of elements from human nature to society and its controls. All three of these symbols also change and are one of the most important elements of the story.
In Lord of the Flies, Golding is able to exemplify intelligence, violence, and leadership, through the behaviors, responses, and actions of Piggy, Jack, and Ralph, respectively. Golding provides insight into the delicate touch-and-go basis of human nature, something that to this day has yet to be fully understood.
When he goes to tell the other boys what he found out, they mistake him for the beast and kill him out of fear. Jack's tribe realizes they cannot make cooking fires without Piggy's glasses so they ambush Ralph and the others in the night and steal Piggy's glasses. When Ralph, Piggy, Sam, and Eric go to speak with Jack's tribe to get Piggy's glasses back Ralph and Jack end up fighting, Sam and Eric get taken prisoner, and Roger kills Piggy. Sam and Eric (now part of Jack's tribe) warn Ralph that the tribe plans to hunt Ralph and put his head on a spear like they did to the sow. Roger tortures Sam and Eric until they tell him where Ralph is hiding, so Jack's tribe sets off hunting for Ralph and light the forest on fire to smoke Ralph out of hiding, but the fire burns out of control and the whole island catches on fire.