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Symbolism used in Lord of the Flies
Symbolic meaning in Lord of the Flies
Civilization and savagery in Lord of the Flies
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Recommended: Symbolism used in Lord of the Flies
Dalai Lama believed “In order to carry the positive action we must develop here a positive vision”. Vision makes a strong impact on all the actions in a person’s everyday life. This is what was happening to all the boys in an unknown island in Lord of the Flies. Piggy, one of the main characters had a poor eyesight and was a fat kid with asthma. Although he was physically the weakest boy, his glasses held one of the strongest symbolic significance. It was extremely useful for the boys. In this allegorical novel, Piggy’s glasses go from being intact to one of the lense cracking and then finally getting stolen corresponding to the ability to see the result of their good actions which was getting rescued, drifting away to hunting and finally losing …show more content…
Till his glasses were intact and the boys were on the right track. Although Ralph and Jack had a small argument about who would be the chief, they found democracy and voting an answer to the conflicts. All of them were quite united and followed what Ralph said as he was the elected leader. All of them were acting civilized and did what they were assigned to do. The glasses were extremely crucial as it helped them to create fire. Fire was extremely important for the boys as it was the only hope they had for getting rescued. Piggy also had the ability of seeing stuff that no one in the boys could see. When his glasses were in perfect conditions, he was the one who could see the real usage of the conch and the importance of law and order. Piggy pointed out the idea of assembling people and calling them by mentioning “A conched he called it. He used to blow it and his mom used to come”. (11) This proves that Piggy and his glasses were capable of a lot of positive outcomes but only when they were in the right condition. All of the boys were doing their duties as they knew staying civilized and not being savages can lead them to getting rescues which was their
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.
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...
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.
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:
...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.
Even though Piggy does not agree to lend the other boys on the island his glasses to start the fire it, it brought hope. In the book Ralph suggests, “ His specs-use them as burning glasses!” (40). When they use the glasses to start the fire all the boys are excited and filled with new hope. PIggy's glasses truly brought hope because they planed to make smoke with the fire so they could be rescued. Without piggy and his glasses
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)
Ralph shows that he has a better understanding of the boys than Jack. He knows that the boys need some sort of order on the island in order for them to survive. He starts a simple form of government and sets a few rules for them. Even though they don’t last very long, the fact that he tried to help the group is what makes him a better leader. Ralph’s wisdom and ability to look toward the future also has an advantage over Jack. He has a sense to keep his focus on getting off the island. When the fire goes out, Ralph gets upset because the chance to be rescued was gone as well. Ralph enforces his role of leadership as he gives the boys a sense of stability of an authority figure. He keeps the boys in pretty good order at the meeting by making a rule that they can only speak if they have the conch. Ralph knows that the littleuns are afraid and they need shelter to feel more secure. They work together for a while, but as the time goes on the smaller boys want to go play. They slowly lose all their help until Simon and Ralph are the only ones left to work on them. Ralph knows that this is a necessity and keeps bringing it up at the meetings. Jack, on the other hand, is doing nothing but causing chaos.
In one of the chapter’s Piggy states that “How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper” (Golding 45). It shows he is a thinker and more practical than the others. He is the only one who acts mature while other kids just want to have
In the novel, Piggy represents intelligence and rationality because of how he thoroughly thinks through all situations that he faces and due to his exceptional ability to create simple solutions to any problem. At very beginning of the novel, shortly after emerging from the wreckage of the crashed plane, Piggy and Ralph first meet each other. As the pair walk along the beach, Ralph finds a conch, which gives Piggy the idea of using the conch to “‘call the others. Have a meeting. They’ll come when they hear us’” (Golding 16). Even after the initial shock of crash-landing on a presumably deserted island, Piggy is able to gather his wits and realize that their best chance of survival to gather all the boys and get some kind of organization established. Although Ralph found the conch initially, he was only attracted to it because it looked like “a worthy plaything” (16). Piggy however, unlike Ralph, immediately thought up a novel idea of how to use the conch to better their situation, by using it to gather everyone else, and to assess the overall predicament they found themselves in. Piggy was focused on long-term survival and sustainability rather than the short-term entertainment that the conch presented. People who have high levels of intelligence often possess extremely rational thinking methods. The Beast had begun to terrorize the mountain, particularly in the vicinity ...
In the novel Lord of the Flies William Golding uses many forms of symbolism to point out the underlying conflicts in their society. By using these symbols he makes the reader not only think about the problems that arise in the book, but also hints towards problems in our society today. The story uses the conch, fire, and the glasses to reference other meanings in the story. These symbols play a crucial part in the story in which they provide the reader with information that isn’t directly stated but is inferred.
When Piggy is clearly able to see with the help of the glasses the boys are still fairly civilized. For example, at one of their first meetings, the boys decide that they "can't have everybody talking at once" and that they "have to have there hands up' like at school" (Golding, 33). However, after some time passes, the boys become more concerned with slaughtering a pig than with being rescued and returning to civilization. Returning, from a successful hunt in the jungle chanting "Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood," Ralph and Piggy attempt to explain to the boys that having meat for their meals is not as important as keeping the signal fire burning (Golding, 69). With anger, Jack knocks Piggy glasses off from his face, smashing one of the lenses against rocks and obviously impairing his vision. William Golding uses Piggy's glasses as a symbol of civilization and when they break it is like that the
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.
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 he disliked, to those over himself. 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.
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.