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Character Of Piggy

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What is one object you would like to bring to a stranded island? Most people of the 21st century would say, their phone, a symbol of technology. The writer of the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding describes Piggy’s character in great detail using symbols, which reflect on to his personality as well as civilization. Piggy is a clever boy who shares his knowledge with the rest of the boys throughout the novel. However, he is also a victim of asthma and myopia, the condition of being shortsighted. Myopia is fixed by wearing glasses, which is a symbol of technology and civilization. Piggy plays a major role throughout the novel and serves as symbols of logic, scientific knowledge as well as inferiority.

When trapped on a stranded island …show more content…

Piggy, the only one with glasses is an outlier not only because he wears glasses but also because he is a “fatty”(17). Jack and Ralph do not even let Piggy finish a sentence without saying “Shut up!”. This makes the audience show pity for Piggy and feel hatred towards the other boys. Piggy also suffers from “ass-mar” giving the boys another reason to verbally harass him for his lack of fitness. Despite his problems, Piggy being the kind and generous boy continues to help start a fire by carrying branches up the mountain. Yet Jack uses his assertiveness and authority over the pig’s meat and denies Piggy any meat. Jack uses prejudice against Piggy to gain popularity amongst the savages by sharing common dislike. Surprisingly, Golding also describes Piggy in a way that makes it seem like he is also enforcing the idea of inferiority. Until Piggy introduces himself to the audience, Golding refers to him as “the fat boy”. Moreover, Golding also begins the novel by describing Piggy as, “shorter than the fair boy and very fat”. Ironically, that fat boy is the one behind all of Ralph’s sensible decisions. He is an outcast because of his glasses yet that object is the reason why the boys got rescued even after Piggy died. Those glasses represent fire and give Piggy the ability to notice the boys changing into tribal savages. Piggy speaks about responsibilities for survival but he, himself can’t do much due to his asthma. This makes Piggy seem vulnerable and irrelevant in the eyes of Jack and the other

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