William Golding's Lord Of The Flies: Literary Analysis

The novel, Lord Of The Flies, is filled with many motifs and symbols that illustrates to the reader the book's purpose and meaning. The book takes place during a world war where a plane crashes with a group of schoolboys on an unknown island. The boys find that the island is uninhabited and that there are no adults on the island. At first they take the advantage of having no adult supervision and enjoy their freedom. As time moves on, law and order starts to fall apart. William Golding uses many symbols that represents law, order and savagery throughout the book.

At the beginning of the book Ralph and Piggy find a conch shell. The conch quickly becomes a symbol when Ralph blows the conch calling the other boys. Later on, Ralph is voted the leader of the tribe and makes the first law that you can only speak if you have the conch, symbolizing law and order. “They obeyed the summons of the conch, partly because Ralph blew it, and he was big enough to be a link with the adult world of authority.” (59). This quote is describing the littluns adapting to life without an adult by associating Ralph as the adult of the group because he was the one to call

order. As time passed on in the book, law and order begins to fall apart. Ralph steps in and calls an assembly with the conch late at night to remind the boys about the rules. “Exposure to the air had bleached the yellow and pink to a near-white, and transparency.” (78). The transparent and white conch mean that law and order is beginning to fade and the boys are becoming less civilized and more savage. The term “ exposure to the air” in the beginning of the quote, shows that now since the boys have been exposed to the island and the natural world. The word“bleached” means that the boys have changed or is becoming less humane and are now going back to the human's natural savage state.

During an assembly a littlun brings up a question asking the older boys what they are going to do about the beast.

At first the beast is something from the littlun’s imagination. But the beast later becomes a symbol of fear within the boys. The more savage and less civilized the boys become, the more realistic the beast is. During a assembly one of the older boys, Jack, concludes that the beast is real and leads the other boys to go hunt the beast. “The assembly shredded away and became a discursive and random scatter from the palms to the water and away along the beach, beyond the night-sight.”(92). Back to the symbol of the conch, the conch starts the loose it meaning and is now just an object that the boys sometimes obey. Law and order is now starting to become a less important matter; it's beginning to “shred”

away.

The boys have been stranded on the island now for a long time and law and order continues to collapse. Jack, tired of Ralph having authority, leaves with most of the boys and forms a new tribe on Castle Rock leaving only Ralph, Piggy, Simon, the littluns and the twins, Sam and Eric, by themselves. Jack has now taken power and becomes the leader of his own tribe. “Power laid in the brown swell of his forearms: authority sat on his shoulders and chattered in in his ear like an ape.” (150). This indicates that law and order has now almost entirely disappeared. Law and order in Jack’s tribe is driven by fear. Golding later implies that Jack’s method of leadership can leads to unfortunate events.

Afterwards, Piggy and Ralph went backs to the shelters and fell asleep. Jack’s tribe attacked them and stole Piggy’s glasses to make a fire. Ralph and Piggy went back to Castle Rock with the conch and ask for Piggy’s glasses. Jack and Ralph fight over who’s leader while Piggy is shouting in the background holding the conch, trying to remind the boys of hope of being rescued. Roger pushes a boulder down the mountainside that shatters the conch shell and kills Piggy. “The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and cease to exist.” (181). The conch being broken symbolizes the end of law and order as well as the end of Ralph’s power and authority. In the quote, the phrase “conch exploded into a thousand white fragments” shows that law and order ended violently and abrupt. Piggy’s death symbolizes that civilization is almost gone within the boys. “There was no Piggy to talk sense. There was no solemn assembly for debate nor dignity of the conch.” (196). With now Piggy and Simon, the two characters who remain the most civilized throughout the book are dead and the conch being shattered, chaos begins to takes over the island.

The twins Sam and Eric, captured by Jack’s tribe, warns Ralph that Jack is going to hunt him the next day and that “Roger sharpened a stick at both ends.”(190). This indicates that the boys have now completely changed back to their savage state and has now turned on their own kind. The stick was sharpened at both ends to put Ralph’s head on one side of the stick and put the other side in the ground like Jack did with the sow’s head. The sharpened stick also symbolizes that the boys have been carved to their savage state, much like the stick was carved to become sharper. The next day, Jack’s tribe sets the island on fire in order to kill Ralph. “He wormed his way through the thicket towards the forest, keeping as far away as possible beneath the smoke.” (195). Ralph is struggling to escape Jack’s people as well as the fire. The boys on the island have become so savage and bloodthirsty that they turn against their own kind. Ralph wakes up later to find an officer on the island saying that he saw their smoke and has come to rescue them. It becomes ironic that the boys finally get rescued after Jack sets the whole island of fire because Ralph struggles throughout the book to keep the boys civilized and to keep order from falling apart yet Jack, who's not as desperate to be saved ends up getting the boys saved in the end.
Above all, Golding’s development of order and savagery throughout the book shows how quickly things can unravel and fall apart. The boys at the beginning of the book were completely different than how they were at the end. The conch is one of the most important symbols in the book. The conch’s development throughout the book ultimately shows Goldings idea of law and order and how it unfolds and then fades away. The beast is not much of a symbol of order but fear and savagery. The beast drives the boys deeper into their savage state when it becomes more realistic. Jack, the boy to become the most savage, demonstrates the desire for something. Jack’s urge to kill a pig shows how easily humans can become attached to something and the true savage state a human can turn into. Golding’s expansion of order and savagery all through Lord Of The Flies implies that order is hard to keep throughout a long period of time. Also that savagery is within every human and that it’s hard to contain once you start to revert back our crude and savage state.