William Golding Lord Of The Flies Chapter Structure Analysis

Literature can cause a reader to burst into laughter, tears, and fits of rage uncontrollably. This is possible because structure. Authors use structure to make the reader go through an emotional rollercoaster with the characters, and therefore it helps a reader relate more closely with them. William Golding expertly applies this to his book The Lord of the Flies. The book’s focuses is a group of boys on an uninhabited island who have to figure out how to survive without society. Golding’s writing displays the group’s descent into savagery and madness through their thoughts and actions, which turn from rational thinking and practical actions to fear of a nonexistent “beastie” and inhuman practices. In chapter 8 specifically, this savagery is

exemplified by the struggles of one boy named Simon. To help the reader understand what Simon is going through, Golding shaped the structure of Simon’s struggle with dialogue and a sequence of events that bring deeper meaning to his words.

Dialogue, and even a lack thereof, can help the reader relate to characters as they face challenges and grow. Because of this, authors often use it liberally to explain plot developments. When Simon’s struggle starts to unfold in chapter 8, no dialogue occurs. Instead, Golding elaborated on the heat and thirst Simon is experiencing. Because the text is not broken up by conversation, it contains a long paragraph that feels solid and sturdy. This subconsciously makes the reader understand that Simon is in a sound state of mind, by relating the solidity of the text to that of his own thoughts. However, when Simon is brought up again later in the chapter, dialogue is present. Simon speaks to the Lord of the Flies, a severed sow’s head

that was drove onto a stick and then stuck in the ground. He feels that the sow is assured him “. . . that everything was a bad business . . .”, so he responds with “. . . I know . . .” (Golding 140). This interaction helps the reader understand that Simon is beginning to lose his grip on reality, as displayed by his abnormal behavior. Finally, the scene just before the apex of his struggle contains a full conversation between the Lord of the Flies and Simon. The dialogue here contains strange phrases typically avoided on the island like “. . . they think you’re batty . . .” and “. . . there isn’t anyone to help you . . .” (146). Because such ideas are usually pushed from the mind on the island, the dialogue insinuates that Simon has fell into a unhealthy mental state. Because the dialogue shows Simon’s progression from sanity, to an unstable mentality, to near insanity, its inclusion in the structure of chapter 8 helps the reader relate to Simon’s struggle throughout the chapter.
Similarly, Golding uses sequence of events to make the progression of Simon’s struggle understandable to the reader. When Simon’s struggle begins, he is not faced by any overpowering or awesome problems. Instead, he is simply dehydrated from the sun and all the work he has done. Though this by itself is not very crucial to the development of Simon’s struggle, when put in a sequence of events, dehydration becomes a game changer. When Simon sees the head of the sow, his weary physical state takes a toll on his mind. He views the pig as “grinning amusedly in the strange daylight, ignoring the flies, the spilled guts, even ignoring the indignity of being spiked on a stick . . .” (140-141), and was even under the impression that the beast agreed with his thoughts. Without both the background knowledge of Simon’s dehydration and Simon’s thoughts in this scene, neither would seem important. However, because the reader learns of Simon’s parchedness, he understands that Simon’s weird cognition means his physical state is getting worse. In addition to this, after continuing his conversation with the Lord of the Flies, Simon loses consciousness. Again, if Simon had simply passed out, it would not seem significant or have an effect on his struggle. Contrastingly, because Golding used a sequence of events to lead up to this scene, the reader can understand just how desperate Simon’s situation may be. The impact the order of scenes had on the reader shows that Golding used a specific sequence of events to help the reader relate to Simon’s struggle throughout chapter 8.
Chapter 8 is the epitome of structure put to good use.

By incorporating both dialogue and order of events into the chapter, Golding related Simon’s experiences to the reader flawlessly. However, Golding did not only use structure throughout Simon’s struggle. Through the structure of the plot development of Lord of the Flies and chapter 8 specifically, Golding draws parallels between Simon’s and all of the boys’ struggles and creates an emphasis on the group’s downward spiral into

savagery.