Order/Hope into Destruction in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies
William Golding’s, ‘Lord of the Flies’, is a powerful piece of literature that teaches important perspectives on the human nature and mind. In the story, the boys plane is shot down by the the military in which it lands on a deserted island. After this event, the boys’ decide to create a civilization on the island until they’re rescued. Golding paints a realistic image of evil, hope, and order expressed through the three items: the Lord of the Flies, the fire, and the conch during World War 2. The boys believe these items will assist them, however, they end up all tearing them apart in the end: the symbols all appear to be beneficial to the situation but eventually lead to their demise. Golding effectively uses the literary device symbolism to develop the theme in the novel that chaos and destruction can occur in the most peaceful places.
The Lord of the Flies is meant to be a peace offering to the beast, but symbolizes the boys’ fears and inherent evil pushing them to savagery. Although, The Lord of the Flies isn’t evident at the beginning of the novel it soon shows up as a peace offering to the “beast.” Responding to the elusive “beast” Jack says, “‘This head is for the beast. It’s a gift,’” (Golding 137). In
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this quote, Jack puts a sow’s head on a pointed stick and leaves it for the beast, this head comes to be later known as the Lord of the Flies. This head may be a peace offering but, represents the savageness and evil inside the boys and everyone. For example, The Lord of the Flies says, “‘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?,’” (Golding 143). In this quote the Lord of the Flies is introduced to Simon by talking about the “beast” that lives inside everyone and can’t be killed nor destroyed. Therefore, making the Lord of the Flies a figure of corrupted and evil power inside everyone. In conclusion, The Lord of the Flies is meant to be a peace offering to the beast, but symbolizes the boys’ fears and inherent evil pushing them to savagery. The fire is a representation of hope for the children getting off the island, but continues to cause more problems inside the group. Ralph talks about, “‘The fire’s the most important thing. Without the fire we can’t be rescued,’” (Golding 142). The fire in this quote is becoming the most important item by symbolizing the hope inside everyone. Furthermore, while the story moves on the fire continues to symbolize hope, but if gained too much power, can represent destruction. Another quote says, “The beard of flame diminished quickly; then the pile fell inwards with a soft, cindery sound and sent a great tree of sparks upwards that leaned away and drifted downwind,” (Golding 41). This quote reveals the first fire, they made that ended badly when they gave it too much power, showing that too much hope can cause disaster and destruction. Additionally, the fire is a representation of hope for the children getting off the island, but continues to cause more problems inside the group. The conch is a representation of order and organization of the boys group and on the island but, is soon destroyed along with many other powerful items. After the boys get on the island, Piggy suggests to use a conch shell he found to call the other boys. Responding to Piggy’s advice, Ralph says, “Ralph waved the conch. ‘Shut up! Wait! Listen!’ He went on in the silence, borne on his triumph. ‘There’s another thing. We can help them find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire,’” (Golding 38). This quote shows the first time Ralph called a meeting using the conch. Also, the conch in this quote is now first shown as a representation of order and organization in the group. Also, responding to the separation of the group, “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,” (Golding 181). This quote reveals the destruction of both the conch and Piggy in the same moment, leading to all order to be gone on the island. While the story moves on, Jack’s group goes to hunt down Ralph because of that loss of order and organization. Therefore, the conch is a representation of order and organization of the boys group and on the island but, is soon destroyed along with many other powerful items. To conclude, William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, utilizes the literary device of symbolism to support the theme that chaos and destruction can occur in the most peaceful places.
By using symbolism to develop the story, Golding shows his readers that the island is a place of evil and changes the boys from civil to savage. The end of Golding’s story shows the order and organization on the island dying along with Piggy and Simon, causing chaos and destruction to Ralph and the others. Even after many years, Golding’s book still holds the same message, the human nature is the same in everyone and chaos and destruction can be caused by this human nature even in the most peaceful
places.
The evil in man is seen in many parts of life and it could be only be brought out when they have the power and position to do it. In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding symbolism is used to show the theme of the Inherent Evil of Man through the conch, the Lord of the Flies, and the fire. The breaking of the conch shows how the boys forget authority and destroy their only symbol of civilization. The Lord of the Flies shows the violence of the boys, and the temptation of the evil Lord of the Flies. The fire shows how something used for rescue and hope is turned into something violent and evil. The fire burns down trees and parts of the island when the savage boys are trying to kill Ralph.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies portrays the lives of young British boys whose plane crashed on a deserted island and their struggle for survival. The task of survival was challenging for such young boys, while maintaining the civilized orders and humanity they were so accustomed too. These extremely difficult circumstances and the need for survival turned these innocent boys into the most primitive and savaged mankind could imagine. William Golding illustrates man’s capacity for evil, which is revealed in man’s inherent nature. Golding uses characterization, symbolism and style of writing to show man’s inhumanity and evil towards one another.
When we hear the word “beast,” most of us will immediately think of some enormous hairy creature with razor sharp fangs and massive claws coming to kill and eat us. Although these types of beasts do exist, the boys in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, show that a different, much more sinister beast is present in all of our everyday lives, and, like the boys in the book, most of us don’t even know about it. Throughout the book, the existence and meaning of the beast go through significant changes. In the beginning, the boys believe the beast to be a substantive being. At first no one believes it, but later they begin to believe its existence. Later though, the beast reveals itself as an internal flaw within everyone on the island, and slowly begins to take over the children’s free will. As the belief in the beast goes up, its manifestation as the “typical beast” that we all think of goes down, which is ironic because they are creating the beast in their minds, while also living it out in their actions.
The book Lord of the Flies Jack the leader of the savages wasn't always bad. William Goldberg the author says that everyone is capable of becoming evil, where philosophers like Jean- Jacques Rousseau who implied that it was our environment that shapes us. While Golding has some good points on his theory I have to agree With Rousseau because of many of his beliefs.
The author, William Golding uses the main characters of Ralph, Jack, and Simon in The Lord of the Flies to portray how their desire for leadership, combined with lack of compromise leads to the fall of their society. This desire for leadership and compromise led to the fall of their society just like multiple countries during times of wars.
In conclusion, we can assume that Golding was trying to use religious and war motifs as well as the themes of civilization versus savagery to illustrate the decay the island from good to evil, the reader can use Golding’s selection of words and description to deduce the way in which the island was becoming: rotten and vicious. This further on builds on Golding’s idea of mankind’s evil nature – the thematic epicentre of the novel.
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.
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.
The classic novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding is an exciting adventure deep into the nether regions of the mind. The part of the brain that is suppressed by the mundane tasks of modern society. It is a struggle between Ralph and Jack, the boys and the Beast, good and evil.
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.
The novel, “Lord of The Flies”, is written by William Golding and it is about a group of British schoolboys that were forced to live on an inhabited island due to a devastating plane crash. The boys were escorted out of their homes in order to keep themselves safe due to the war that was occurring. William Golding has used symbolism as one of his ways to develop the theme of the book throughout the story. The theme of evilness, savagery and the sign of leadership was shown and developed through the use of symbolism, which included: the conch, the fire and Piggy’s glasses.
In William Gouldings’ story “Lord of The Flies” he presents multiple examples of mankind being naturally evil. Notably, he mentions, in chapter 7, that Jack and his hunters were playing a game. This game was not your ordinary young boy game, the game was vaguely dark, considering they were all young boys. This so called game involved chanting and pretending to murder one of their friends, as if the friend was one of the wild pigs. Along with that, Goulding begins to darken it up even further, Jack has his boys tie up and beat another friend of theirs. Ultimately, the boys and Jack end up attempting to actually murder two of their supposedly friends.
In the symbolic novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a small group of civilized English boys find themselves stranded on an uninhabited island and slowly dissolve into chaos after dividing themselves into two groups. Due to no adults being present to act as assertive leaders, the boys demonstrate many aspects of human nature, such as descending into survival mode when they are placed outside of society in a place with no fixed rules or consequences to go along with them if they were to be broken. Through the devolution of the boys’ created society, Golding conveys that human nature is inherently evil and that without the proper laws of society, people will go into survival mode and rely on their primal instincts to help them endure
The heavy rain slammed against the ground in the dark of night. The man rounded the corner only to witness the dreadful sight of a lifeless figure limp on the coated concrete. It was horrid, blood splatter, and torn flesh. The torture that this poor person could have endured would be preposterous. He was enraged, teeth clenched, he cursed the gods for allowing such people to get killed by emotionless and cruel “humans”. Every single person born on this Earth is not invincible to such acts. Similar to William Golding, every human contains a non-civilized or barbaric characteristic due to the fact that people always struggle for power, someone’s craving for their desires can cloud their judgment of what’s right, and the only thing that contains
William Golding is a master at creating theme, in his first paragraph of Lord of the Flies, he warns his audience about the negative impact technology has on the environment. The author uses the characters and setting as symbols to help create a theme. When Ralph and Piggy discuss their status, “‘They’re all dead,’ said Piggy, “an’ this is an island. Nobody don’t know we’re here…’” (Golding 14). The island represents the world and boys represent a society. Each boy will actually represent a type of person. Collectively, the characters will have to form a society on this new place in order to survive. At his time, transportation was a major symbol of technology. Piggy states, “I saw the other part of the plane” (Golding 8). A plane was a symbol