critical analysis of lord of the flies

The work being criticized in this paper is the Lord of The Flies. The Lord of The Flies, by William Golding, is about the faults in human society as well as in human nature and it achieves this through its heavy use of symbolism. Many smalls symbols go into creating the overly larger picture and overall theme.
In the middle of a war a group of British schoolboys are being evacuated, they are shot down over a deserted island. The first two boys we meet Ralph and Piggy find their way to the beach where they find a conch shell. They use the shell to summon all the other boys on the island to the beach. He has the boys democratically elect a leader which turns out to be him and appoints Jack the leader of a the choir into the second in command and in charge of hunting. Ralph, Jack, and Simon go out and explore the island to confirm that it is infact an island. Ralph gets the idea in order to be rescued we must light a signal fire and appoints Jack in control of that. They use Piggy’s glasses to ignite the blaze but upon their success they forgot to monitor the fire, which quickly became out of control and set part of the forest on fire. Ralph being the leader tries to get the boys to stop wasting the day away playing games and swimming and build shelter and monitor the fire. Jack becomes obsessed with hunting and begins to neglect the fire. One day a ship passes by on the horizon, Piggy and Ralph look up and realize the signal fire is not lit because the hunters neglected it. Ralph scolds Jack and the hunters for their negligence but the hunters had gotten their first kill and were wrapped up in some sort of ritual. At this meeting the “littluns” or the younger children voice their concern of the beast. The older boys go on a hunt fo...

... middle of paper ...

...oys that was there all along. The signal fire was the overall goal that order strove to achieve.
Throughout the book William Golding makes many excellent uses of symbols and a very large intertwining web of symbols. He created an alternate course to history with a very complex plot describing society and its flaws. He also identified many tenants that define the society that we live in today. My arguement is crucial in better understanding the underlying message and and understanding what the author is trying to convey throughout his book.

Works Cited

Parivelan, K. M. "A Critical Analysis of the Psychological Insights in Lord of the Flies by William Golding." A Critical Analysis of the Psychological Insights in Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Predoc.org, 8 July 2013. Web. 05 May 2014.
Elpstein, E. Notes on Lord of The Flies. Newyork Ny, 1954. print.