Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Lord of the Flies literary devices towards the theme of power and leadership
The control of society in lord of the flies
The control of society in lord of the flies
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
When the plane crashed down on a stranded island, the boys’ lives would never be the same. In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, power is a large part of the novel, in fact, from a certain perception, power is the most important factor in Lord of the Flies. There are several factors that lead me to believe this; the pig’s head and conch shell both wield a certain power over the boys, however, their influences are very different. There are also several things that make Lord of the Flies solely about power, and about the power of symbols. Lastly, Lord of the Flies shows how a person can get power from using a symbol to control a group. In Lord of the Flies, several things drive the boys, however, the pig’s head and the conch shell have the greatest power over them.
The conch shell and pig’s head both have power over the boys, however, they are very different. “By the time Ralph finished blowing the conch the platform was crowded,” (narrator, 32). This quote shows how the conch manages to bring everyone together. This quote is important because it shows the reader how the conch symbolizes order and civilization by bringing them together. Although the conch does bring everyone together, as the civilization on the island begins to fall apart the conch loses its power over the boys. “I’m warning you. I’m going to get angry. D’you see? You’re not wanted. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island! So don’t try it on, my poor misguided boy, or else-” (Lord of the Flies, 144). This quote is important because when Simon has a confrontation with the Lord of the Flies, he tells Simon how evil exists within every human. The “fun” the Lord of the Flies mentions foreshadows t...
... middle of paper ...
...ecause Jack uses the symbol of the beast to put fear into each of the boys. He uses this to his own advantage, he uses their fear to get power over them. As the boys get hungry and scared, they get closer to Jack, because Jack can feed and protect them.
Power is the main theme in Lord of the Flies, and is displayed in several different ways. The conch shell and pig’s head have a lot of influence and power over the boys, but they are very different. Jack expresses authoritarian power throughout the novel, while Ralph expresses democratic power. There are many powerful symbols in this novel, two of them would be Piggy’s glasses and the signal fire. Ralph gets power from the conch, and Jack gets power from the beast. Throughout William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, I’ve learned that the conch shell and pig’s head have a very powerful, but different, effect on the boys.
In Lord of the Flies the moral is teaching you that man can go mad no matter what age. The kids start trying to build a society after they crashed landed on an island. The way they choose their leader doomed them from the start, Ralph finds a shell and declares him the ruler. There’s a famous saying, “power makes man corrupt.” This holds true in this story. After arguments with other people in the tribe about his ruling situation a sort of revolution erupts. This leads to the boys going back to the savage days of survival-of-the-fittest. The ones with most power start taking in kids as slaves showing how getting the advantage of power made them enslave their own friends. The story isn’t set back in the 1800s either when slavery was tolerated,
The conch was the only thing that held the boys with a moral glue that they knew what their limit was. Golding states the power the conch once had with the boys, "Conch! Conch!" shouted Jack. "We don’t need the conch any more. We know who ought to say things. What good did Simon do speaking, or Bill, or Walter? It 's time some people knew they 've got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us" (139). The order that they had before diminished to little pieces the conch had no meaning for the rest of boys and they could do whatever they wanted. The conch kept the order it had power the boys needed to hear one another out; also it meant as together when the conch is destroyed was is left with the boys? The boys are no longer had order and become savages To add to their downfall, the death of Piggy he was the voice of reasoning that he was trying to reason with everyone what would be the right thing to do; even though nobody paid attention to what he had to say but they did listen. As a consequence, without the voice of reasoning on the island there is a no hold bars of what could happen next to the boys is a free for
"They looked at each other, baffled in love and hate," (Golding 71). In the tale of Lord of the Flies by William Golding, in attempt to escape from their boarding school during WWII, numerous British schoolboys end up stranded on an island after the catastrophe of a plane crash. Before long, innocent kids are dying, society is falling apart, and anarchy reigns. The dominate characters in Lord of the Flies, Jack and Ralph, are two boys of the same age and who battle constantly for power throughout the entire novel. While Ralph possesses some rescue skills, Jack possesses survival skills which ensure him to live a moderate life while stranded on the island. Jack also accomplishes many things while living on the island, such as creating a tribe, whereas Ralph only achieves starting a small fire atop a mountain in attempt to be rescued. Considering these facts, Jack is the better leader in Lord of the Flies.
forgets about the beast and ignores it. After a while, though, some of the boys are in Jack's tribe because of their fear, but not their fear. of the beast of the sea. They stay in Jack's group because they are afraid of Jack and, eventually, Roger. Jack controls them all by showing he is merciless.
Power is very dangerous, as shown in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. The novel explores the use of power in both the hands of good and evil and for success and for failure. Also, how some characters respond to having power. An examination of William Golding’s LOTF will show how fear is powerful and how the characters use that to their advantage. Also, the power shifts between the characters and the aftermath of that.
Golding establishes the power and potential of government and its vulnerability to outside affairs. In “Lord of the Flies,” each of the older boys strive for power and authority. Their views and beliefs are all dissimilar, resulting in each boys to possess different elucidation on how the island should function. These representations of government are apparent in Ralph, Jack, and Piggy, and prompt the social unrest and inability to compensate for their own needs. The way in which a leader governs determines the path that he/she sets upon his
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.
One of the most important themes running through the whole story in Lord of the Flies by William Golding is the power of different symbols. Golding frequently uses symbolism, which is the practice of using symbols especially by investing things with a symbolic meaning. The main point of each symbol is its use and its effect on each of the characters. They help shape who the characters are and what they will be. The symbols weave their way throughout the story and are more powerful than they first seem. Two boys from similar upbringings can both be so drastically different when put in difficult situations and given things to make them wield power among others. Spitz says, “But his desire for many controls did not, of course, extend to controls
One of the most important symbols in Lord of the Flies is the pig's head. The pig's head is described by Golding as "dim-eyed, grinning faintly, blood blackening between the teeth," and is covered with a "black blob of flies.” (p. 137-138). Golding uses the pig’s head to personify the evil within the boys. This is shown mainly when Simon has a conversation with the pig in his own conscious and imagines the pig saying, "Fancy thinking the beast was something you could hunt and kill! Oh you knew, didn't you? I'm part of you?" (p. 143). After Simon wakes up and sees that what the boys thought was beast is actually a dead body of an airman in a parachute, he attempts to tell the boys about his new discovery. Although, when he arrived, the boys attack and bludgeon him to death. That shows how after the boys start to exist without society’s rules, they allow evil to control and dominate their actions and become savages.
In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, the boys who are stranded on the island come in contact with many unique elements that symbolize ideas or concepts. Through the use of symbols such as the beast, the pig's head, and even Piggy's specs, Golding demonstrates that humans, when liberated from society's rules and taboos, allow their natural capacity for evil to dominate their existence.
Piggy believes ordered power is the most important thing on the island, so he fights against Jack’s interruptions in meetings with the straightforward statement: "’I got the conch… I got the right to speak." (44). Piggy is going against Jack’s savage rule breaking. He believes that “rights” and rules are the only things keeping the island going and fights for them. On the other hand, The Lord of the Flies not only believes in savagery, he encourages it. The Lord of The Flies threatens Simon with brutal murder if he does not join Jack’s tribe full of savage boys (114). Simon does not even believe the beast is real. He believes the beast is inside us all. The hunters believe the beast is an actual creature that can be hunted and feel the only way to defeat the beast is to kill it, which has turned into a priority for the group. Roger killed both the characters, one character got stronger and the other got weaker. After the mother sow dies it develops into the Lord of the Flies (124). The Lord of the Flies flourished after death. The mother pig is seen as weak but when it dies it becomes more powerful and has more influence. Piggy did not flourish after he died, with the conch in his hand he was killed (180). The conch symbolizes ordered power and after it was shattered, the ordered power went away and the savages took over the
Lord of the Flies is a novel that is all about symbols that have different powers which is used on the boys. Two of the symbols which are the conch and the sow’s head contain powers that are opposite of each other and they have a great affect on the boys. Lord of the Flies would be a different story without symbols. The conch has the powers that lead to civilization and order. It represents the authority that the boys will need to get rescued from the island. The sow’s head on the other hand represents the evil powers to lead the boys to total chaos and savagery which is created by Jack. Jack has used one of the sow’s head’s symbolism which is the beast to control his group. The conch has a power that is used for order and civilization, while the sow’s head has a power to control evil and savagery.
Lord of the flies is not just a story about boys trapped on an island; it is a story about power struggle over democracy and dictatorship in societies. They are many objects used in the novel to show dictatorship and democracy. Also, they are many situations between characters in the novel to show the power struggles between the two ideologies. Between the power struggle, characters also use these objects to control emotions and people’s decisions in the novel. People and societies give away too much power to objects and let them control their lives.
There are myriad symbols in the novel which incompass human nature.The beast in the novel represents the religious aspect all societies ability to generate a common fear.The need for fear is one of the most powerful tools in development due to the way in can hold a generalized accountability. Jack 's reign reflects the very depths of human instinct and how humans are inevitably malicious. He used the fear of the beast to control all of the people that followed him. On the other end of the spectrum the conch represents order, which is broken as soon as they let fear govern their morals. The lord of the flies is a sow 's head that jack impales on a stake which is used to symbolize the devil just as simon alludes a christ like figure. The sow 's head makes the reader visualize a palpable evil in the novel. The behavior of the boys in general determines that environment directly regulates
In chapter five, the beast was made-up and did not exist. Many of the boys were afraid of it. Ralph called a meeting because he saw the boys were having problems with their fear of the beast. It is Jack who states, “If there were a beast I’d have seen it. Be frightened because you’re like that- but there is no beast in the forest (Goldberg, p. 83). Symbolism for the beast changes in the novel from a real beast that they think exists to realizing that the beast exists within them. It is Simon in chapter five who states that perhaps the beast exist within them. He states, “What I mean is … maybe it’s only us (Goldberg, p. 89). Simon felt that the beast does not really exist but evil exists among them.