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Uses Of Symbolism In Lord Of The Flies
Uses Of Symbolism In Lord Of The Flies
Lord of the flies civilisation versus savagery
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In the novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, a group of British schoolboys are stranded on an island, and soon find that fending for themselves and staying civilized is not as easy as they thought it would be. Although they start off with an organized society, through interactions with each other and objects around them, they become completely savage over time. Golding employs the symbolism of Jack, the conch shell, and the beast to serve the purpose of the allegory of the inherent evil of the human race. One of the most prominent symbols is the character Jack, as he makes the sharpest turn from civilized to savage. This progression begins when Jack is first seen on the island with his choir: “Shorts, shirts, and different garments …show more content…
they carried in their [the choir’s] hands; but each boy wore a square black cap with a silver badge on it… The boy who controlled them was dressed in the same way though his cap badge was golden. When his party was about ten yards from the platform he shouted an order and they halted, gasping, sweating, swaying in the fierce light”(16). Jack, in the beginning, was perhaps the most civilized of all the boys stuck on the island. Despite the unfortunate situation, he had his choir with their hats and jackets marching in time. Like all the boys at this point, there is not even the slightest hint of savagery in Jack given the freshness of the civilized world that they so recently left behind. In other words, he is in a state that most everyone in the world exists, with all potential evil contained inside of them. However, this does not last long. After a few days on the island, Jack’s desire to hunt pigs becomes strong, and when he believes he has found a way to finally kill one, he reacts in a very uncivilized manner: “He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling”(68). At this point, just out of sheer desire to kill, Jack slips from his original, orderly self to something of an animal. His laughing turned to snarling, and alas, his primitive nature--savagery--begins to emerge from the once uptight choir captain. If this can happen to a nice British school prefect, who could possibly be immune to the slip into an animalistic state? From this, Jack finally gets his kill, and loses his tie to civilization further: “Jack was on top of the sow, stabbing downward with his knife...Then Jack found the throat and the hot blood spouted over his hands. The sow collapsed under them and they were heavy and fulfilled upon her…The boys drew back, and Jack stood up, holding out his hands. ‘Look.’ He giggled and flicked them while the boys laughed at his reeking palms”(154). Jack finally kills his pig, and then laughs about the blood on his hands. Killing is all fun and games, with no necessity, and with this he is purely savage. Nothing squashed the civilization out of him, the evilness simply emerged from him. This directly shows the evil existent within humans, and not just some, but all human beings. It lurks inside every one of them, waiting to show itself. Conversely to Jack, the conch shell in this novel represents civilization, acting as a foil to savagery. This shines through in the beginning, when civilization prevails, and the boys are initially brought together and are electing a chief: “But there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerfully, there was the conch… ‘Let him be chief with the trumpet-thing.’ Ralph raised a hand for silence. ‘All right. Who wants Jack for chief?’... ‘Who wants me?’....Ralph counted. ‘I’m chief then.’”(19-20). Without the conch, the boys would have been wandering the island individually for an indefinite amount of time, and thus they hold a certain reverence toward it and Ralph--who is holding it. It is in fact the conch that makes Ralph chief instead of Jack. With this, the conch brings safety and order to the group, as it not only brought them together, but in a twisted way saved them from Jack, who has proven himself to be very open to the savage within himself. The importance of the conch as a symbol of civilization is perpetuated when the group of boys and the order they once had begins to fall apart: “‘If I blow the conch and they don’t come back; then we’ve had it. We shan’t keep the fire going. We’ll be like animals. We’ll never be rescued.’[said Ralph] ‘If you don’t blow, we’ll soon be animals anyway. I can’t see what they’re doing but I can hear.’[said Piggy]”(102). Ralph acknowledges that the conch is the only thing that really held the boys together up until that point, and if he blows it and no one comes, they will no longer be a unified group. The boys will not longer revere the conch, and what it represents--the virtue of civilization. Nevertheless, as Piggy points out, if they do not even attempt to blow the conch and try to hold on to civilization, descent into savagery is guaranteed. The conch and the civilization it symbolizes have protected the boys from opening up to their own savage within, and without complete reverence toward it, how long could they possibly stay civilized? This in turn suggests that humanity, without civilization, would also become savage. This symbol is solidified with the destruction of the conch once and for all: “The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist... Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across the square red rock in the sea… Suddenly Jack bounded out from the tribe and began screaming wildly. ‘See? See? That’s what you’ll get! I meant that! There isn’t a tribe for you any more! The conch is gone—’”(209). The moment the conch ceases to exist, any hints of civilization in the back of Jack’s mind cease to exist as well, and he becomes unhinged. As he says, the conch is gone; there is no civilization left for Ralph. The conch was thus the only thing that was protecting the boys from themselves and the complete savagery within, as even its existence restrained Jack slightly even when his obedience towards it had since ended. Altogether, this shows how the evil within humanity is always there, and civilization is the only thing mitigating the complete expression of it. Just as Jack symbolizes savagery and the conch shell represents civilization, the beast, an ongoing concern of the boys, represents the evil within the boys that drives their descent from civilization to savagery.
Throughout the story, the fear the boys have of the beast becomes incredibly strong. This ends up driving the boys apart, as seen when Jack organizes a feast for the boys to try to get people to join his tribe, separate from Ralph: “‘I gave you food,’ said Jack, ‘and my hunters will protect you from the beast. Who will join my tribe?’”(172). Everyone is afraid of the beast at this point, and Jack uses this fear to urge people to join his group of hunters. The fear of the beast in turn because a driving factor of the group tearing apart, leaving Ralph against angry savages by the end of the book. The beast therefore is a cause of the boy’s opening up to their inner savagery. The reason for this is explained when Jack gives the beast a physical being when he puts the head of one of the pigs he killed, and Simon, in an hallucination, hears it speak: “Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!...You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?”(164). The pig’s head, or the Lord of the Flies, is a physical manifestation of the beast in Simon’s hallucination, and it explicitly states it is part of Simon. In other words, the beast is representative of the savagery and evil within humans, not a monster roaming the island. The only fear the boys have had is fear of what is within: their inherent evil. This idea is perpetuated when all the boys go to Jack’s tribe’s feast, and end up doing a pig dance, when an unsuspecting Simon comes stumbling into the area the boys are doing their dance in: “‘Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!’...The beast was on its knees in the center, its arms folded over its face… At once the crowd surged after it, poured down
the rock, leapt onto the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore… Presently the heap broke up and figures staggered away...Even in the rain they could see how small a beast it was; and already its blood was staining the sand”(175). The boys’ fear of the beast, which drove the development of their savagery, finally grows to a level where they feel they must kill the beast. However, in their fervor, and their desire to simply kill the fear plaguing them, they murder the first thing to walk unknowingly into their midst--Simon. The beast, and the evil within them it represents, lead the boys to become murderers, which is the ultimate destruction of the civilized and good nature within them. Their innate evilness is finally exposed. Altogether, Lord of the Flies shows the truly evil nature of the human race, as seen through the allegory created by the symbols of Jack, the conch shell, and the beast. Jack represents the completely savage side of humanity as it shines through in even the most civilized of people. The conch represents the civilization that covers up and mitigates the savagery within humanity, being the only thing holding it in. The beast ultimately shows the evil within all humans that drives them away from the small bit of good that they contain. Everyone likes to think that they are good, civilized, people, but alas, would that goodness be maintained if civilization was not there to protect them? There is evil within everyone. It is just a matter of keeping it there.
The Lord of the Flies - Savagery. William Golding’s novel ‘The Lord of The Flies’ presents us with a group of English boys who are isolated on a desert island, left to try and retain a civilised society. In this novel, Golding manages to display the boys slow descent into savagery as democracy on the island diminishes. At the opening of the novel, Ralph and Jack get on extremely well.
William Golding’s novel ‘The Lord of The Flies’ tells the story of a group of English boys isolated on a desert island, left to attempt to retain civilisation. In the novel, Golding shows one of the boys, Jack, to change significantly. At the beginning of the book, Jack’s character desires power and although he does not immediately get it, he retains the values of civilized behaviour. However, as the story proceeds, his character becomes more savage, leaving behind the values of society. Jack uses fear of the beast to control the other boys and he changes to become the book’s representation of savagery, violence and domination. He is first taken over with an obsession to hunt, which leads to a change in his physical appearance This change of character is significant as he leads the other boys into savagery, representing Golding’s views of there being a bad and unforgiving nature to every human.
In the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding utilizes the developments of Ralph, the symbol of order, in order to demonstrate that the further humankind strays from civilization, the more they become tempted by their inherent savage nature. Golding’s novel embodies the struggle between civilization and savagery by expressing the difficulties faced by Ralph when he tries to avoid the desire to kill. Ralph tries to guide himself by clinging to familiar memories from his former life, but falls slightly short, causing him to experience an internal conflict between savagery and civilization. Through Ralph’s relationships and interactions with other characters, he is able to maintain control of himself by personally recognizing the devastating
Lord Of The Flies is many things other than in the bookshelves of libraries, but it is also other things like a religious allegory. A religious allegory with rape and mutilation, the loss of civilization and the rise of savagery. 12-year-old savages couldn’t do THAT much harm except for commit arson, murder and several felonies. These actions just described may all be influenced by the devil, just like the Devil’s role in the bible.
Aside from Piggy and Ralph, Simon works the hardest out of all the boys, and was the only one who would help Ralph finish the huts. It is revealed that he has a subconscious sense of the fact that the beast is not what they think, which is shown when he hallucinates and the “Lord of the Flies” says to him, “Fancy thinking the beast is something you could hunt and kill!” Obviously, the pig’s head on a stick was not actually telling him these things, which means the ideas came from Simon himself. This realisation displays the importance of contemplation in difficult times. At the beginning, Simon says he thinks the Beast could exist, but that “maybe it’s only us.” He is implying that the boys themselves are the Beast, although he struggles to articulate this. Simon is also very kind and forgiving, which is another element common in every person. He is the only boy to show any kindness to Piggy right from the start, and has no ill-intent towards anyone. Simon is selfless, and holds Ralph especially to a higher importance than himself, saying, “you’ll get back to where you came from.” This implies that Simon himself will not get back, but that it’s better that Ralph does as he is more important. The Beast represents the fear of the boys, as well as the selfishness and savagery the boys begin to value more the longer they stay on the island. Simon is further from this idea of the Beast than any other boy on the island, and this is why
Roger’s willingness to devote himself to the savage ways is always growing. For example, as the boys start to get familiar with the island “Roger gathered a handful of stones, and began to throw them. Yet there was a space around Henry where he dare not throw. Here invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life” (Golding 62). His desire to hurt others and be the death in all is greater than his desire to listen to reason and orders. Maybe he wants to do more than just hurt others; perhaps he only wants to be the executioner when the others do wrong and have to be punished. Later, Roger is faced with the decision if he should embrace his savageness of control it. As Jack argues with Ralph over leadership, “The storm of sound beat at them,
In the book Lord of The Flies. There are many examples of both savagery and civility. There are so many differences between the two. One has the strive to keep themselves alive at all costs while the other keeps people alive while trying to keep within society's standpoint on things.
There is a preconceived idea that order is something that humans have that animals do not. However, this does not seem to be the case in Lord of the Flies, in which English schoolboys are stranded on a deserted island. The story tells about their experience and suddenly, the idea that order is a natural human quality is gone. In the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding argues that when order is lost, civilization regresses to savagery. He supports this through the characters of Roger and Jack, as well as the symbolism of the fires throughout the story.
WIthin Lord of the Flies by William Golding, all of the boys begin to descend into savagery differently. Jack is one of the first in the group of boys to become savage, after him, his hunters follow, and eventually eve.
As the mask of Jack increasingly enveloped Jack’s face, the signs of Jack’s exile from civilization grew larger. Towards the middle of the story, fallouts between Jack and Ralph had begun to spark as both of their masks appeared to conflict each other. For example, while Ralph wanted to make shelters for his people, Ralph simply wanted to gather food just for the fun of hunting that he so deeply enjoyed. Another example would be when Ralph wanted to keep the fire lit for ships to notice them. Jack on the other hand, once again focused on hunting rather than keeping the lit. As Ralph increasingly wanted civility for the children on the island. Jack increasingly preferred savagery. As Ralph began to lose some civility, Jack became stronger.
Without laws humans could commit countless of unforgivable crimes. The hierarchy of courts trying to decide the vile, vigorous mistakes humans has created. What would happen if there were no laws? The novel “The Lord of the Flies” by William Golding published in 1945, after World War II. Through the novel, it expresses Golding’s views on human nature and shows how evil and barbaric humans are. It starts off with a group of English boys who has been washed up on an isolated island. At first they celebrate their freedom without adults and created their own rules. However, as time passes on the island their order collapse and it becomes a world of terror and fear. “The Lord of the Flies” conveys civilisation through Ralph and savagery through
Humans like to think that they have evolved since the beginning of life. We were once barbarians whose sole purpose was to hunt and eat. It was a time of savagery and fiendishness, survival of the fittest. It is difficult to think of ourselves as being “savage”. But when put in the right circumstances, we will revert into savagery and the beast within will come out. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is a glimpse into the innate evil in all of us and the true horrors that we are capable of when it comes out. Golding shows that none of us are truly civilized, just good at keeping it hidden. The boys abandon the characteristics of a civilized society as this evil begins to come out. The boys first disregard authority and order and the rules
Imagine living in a world with no parents. Sounds pretty awesome right? While it may be fun for a little bit, you will eventually wish things were back to the way they used to be. William Golding has revealed this through his story to show how mankind's “essential illness” affects those of all ages through different situations such as being stranded on an island. In his novel Lord of the Flies, author William Golding shows, through the children, that in the absence of civilization, humans tend to descend into savagery and become very power-hungry.
In the beginning, Jack first arrives on the island as a well-made leader of the choirboys. There was an expedition that
Steven Wright, a writer, comedian, and actor, once said that “Someone asked me, if I were stranded on a desert island what book would I bring... 'How to Build a Boat’”. Unfortunately, not everyone is as rational or intelligent as Wright, and suffer as a result. In the allegorical fiction novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding depicts the gradual transition from civility to savagery of a group of British boys who have been stranded on an island. Through his portrayal of Jack and his hunters, Golding demonstrates and also improves on the philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ view that people are corrupt and are always trying to gain power, and without a proper form of government, society would fall into chaos.