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
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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
Because Piggy is much more intelligent than the other boys, he adds a sizeable amount of irony to Lord of the Flies. The other castaways on the island treat Piggy with disrespect and contempt, despite how clever the overweight child actually is. The whole time the boys are stranded on the deserted island, instead of concern, they show a definite lack of interest and care for Piggy. The central reason for this cruel deficiency of empathy is Piggy's appearance. Regardless of how intelligent he was, Piggy was ignored because he was fat and he had glasses; the other children could not see past this unattractive façade to the logical and analytical genius underneath. Several times during the novel, Piggy tried to speak his mind, undoubtedly providing logical insight to many issues, such as lighting and maintaining a
Readers are invited to see Piggy as a victim through Piggy's altered appearance. Piggy is unable to partake in essential activities around the island such as swimming, running and climbing the mountain. Piggy’s physical appearance is different to the other boys and he is therefore shown as an outsider. Piggy is described as the ‘fat boy’, having asthma, glasses and no hair. 'He was the only boy on the island whose hair never seemed to grow. The rest were shock-headed, but Piggy’s hair still lay in wisps over his head as though baldness were his natural state.' - (Pg67). In this quote it is evident that Golding uses Piggy's physical differences to cast Piggy in the light of an outsider. As well as using Piggy’s physical appearance to make Piggy an outsider, Golding has used Piggy’s location and surroundings. Piggy is restricted from doing everyday activities for reasons such as asthma.
Piggy’s physical appearance contributes to his position as an outsider within the society of boys. When Piggy and Ralph first meet, Ralph remarks on Piggy’s shortness of breath to which Piggy responds, ¨ That’s right. Can’t catch my breath. I was the only boy in our school what had asthma, said the fat boy with a touch of pride, ‘And I’ve been wearing specs since I was three¨ (Golding 9). This quote describes Piggy as a fat boy with asthma and glasses, while the other boys are skinny and do not share any of the same characteristics as him. In addition, the author contributes to the outcasting Piggy by never revealing his real name and only describing Piggy as the “fat boy.” This proves that in this society, Piggy is not worth getting to
Piggy, though not the most memorable in The Lord of the Flies, resonated the most whilst reading this book. Piggy is the stereotypical nerdy kid who seems to be perpetually bullied, even when he is on a deserted island. He has pinkish skin with glasses and asthma with a belly that ate perhaps too much candy from his aunt’s candy shop. While Piggy is almost useless physically, he is very strong mentally, and proves this when he formulates the idea of the conch, but is too weak to blow into it and call everyone. Piggy seems socially awkward, as if he hasn’t spent much times with his fellow peers and rather passed the time with the adults in this life. We see this when Piggy frequently parrots his aunt’s advice such as “My auntie told me not to run… on account of my
In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, he shows what he believe is truly hidden in people in a series of ideas and symbols hidden in people and objects. The symbolism of the fire, the conch and Piggy’s glasses are important for the message in the book.
Piggy is the intellectual with poor eyesight, a weight problem, and asthma. He is physically vulnerable to all the boys, but he has greater intelligence. Piggy quotes his aunt, so he provides the only female voice.
First and foremost, Piggy’s glasses are used to start a fire which shows a sign of civility as fire is the starting point to civilization, with it being the way the boys will return home. During the first meeting, Ralph addresses the group to say that a fire is needed to go in order to attract attention to the island for a passing boat. The boys then, unsure how to start a fire, “Ralph moved the lenses back and forth, this way and that, till a glossy white image of the declining sun lay on a piece of rotten wood. Almost at once a thin trickle of smoke rose up and made him cough”(Golding 56). This shows that because of Piggy being hard of sight, the boys were able to start a fire and have the ability to return to civilization. Furthermore, due to Piggy’s glasses creating the fire, the boys can now
Piggy is shown throughout the book with glasses. Glasses can be used as a symbol for being smart. Piggy shows many times that he is logical in his thinking. When the boys are fighting Piggy states, “Which is better -- to be a pack of painted Indians like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is? Which is better -- to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill? Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?” (180) By stating this Piggy shows that he has reasoning. Piggy states this near the end of the book in chapter 11. By this point Jack and some of the other boys have killed and become more savage. Piggy realized that there were better ways to live and act than that. By stating his opinion we see Piggy is unlike the other boys because he is using reasoning outside of himself while the other boys are more focused on doing what they want. This excludes Piggy from the others. Another time Piggy’s intellect may have outcasted him was when he spoke of the beast and of
Despite him being so intelligent he the most vulnerable from the book because of his poor eyesight, weight problems and asthma. By constantly quoting his aunt, he also provides the only feminine voice. Piggy's intellect benefits the group only through Ralph he acts as Ralph's advisor. Piggy tries to keep life scientific except for the incident, "searching for a formula" to explain the death.
While the majority of the boys on the island strip naked to hunt pigs with sticks, there is one remaining symbol of civilized reasoning: Piggy's glasses. Initially, when Piggy's glasses are functional in brilliant clarity, he is able think clearly. Accordingly, Piggy knows that order on the island and rescue off of it are extremely critical. He warns the others to not act "like a crowd of lads,” (22). Following the abandonment of the fire, due to Jack’s hunting craze, the smoking flames trickle out. Piggy criticises his obsession of “blood,” recognizing that “[they] could have gone home,” (41). He understands the events with clarity in judgement, unlike many of the “hunters” who are clueless within their reality. Correspondingly, Piggy is the
Piggy stays somewhat static as a good and civilized boy, like some others (e.g. Simon). However, Piggy’s character change involves his entitlement of civility and his specific separation from the rest of the boys. “‘Like kids!’ he said scornfully. ‘Acting like a crowd of kids!’” (38). This quote exhibits Piggy’s nature of judgment over the other boys’ rashness and establishes his entitlement over the other boys early on. This creates a barrier of sorts, as Piggy might not feel tempted to interact the same way because he is “better than that.” Piggy is also directly characterized as the outsider of the group: “There had grown up tacitly among the biguns the opinion that Piggy was an outsider, not only by accent, which did not matter, but by fat, and ass-mar, and specs, and a certain disinclination for manual labor” (65). In a sense, Piggy is separated from the overall group of boys by his physical and character traits. Piggy also has this emphasized character trait of being myopic. Once Piggy’s specs are destroyed, not only is Piggy literally blind but symbolically as well. This, in turn, means the group is also blind, as Piggy was the only character that seemed to provide a substantial amount of rational thinking and ideas. This leads to irrational thoughts to flow free, like Jack’s ideology of madness and
Imagine being stuck on an island with unknown boys and being bullied. Also, being that one person who no one listens to. This was Piggy. In the Lord of the Flies, Golding represents this character as an outcast, logical, and as the person who reminds everyone to keep the civilization. These repetitions will lead to the conclusion to why the author’s purpose was for Piggy to be the adult voice of reason, and why this symbol represents that he is the adult like figure on the island.
In the novel, Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, the character Piggy, a fatboy with several disabilities such as poor vision, lack of athletic skills, and asthma, seems to be the only person on an uninhabited island to keep the rules and conditioning that he was given back in England. Piggy’s grasp of following and obeying the rules is shown when he repeatedly tries to only speak when he has the conch, a rule the group of survivors agreed upon. Furthermore, another characteristic Piggy has is his ability to reason, and think in a fast-paced situation. This is described in Chapter 5, where Ralph thinks that, “Piggy, for his ludicrous body, had brains”(pp.78). With this in mind, it clearly shows who is the person of reason in the
Piggy’s Character Analysis What would you do if you were stranded in an island with kids that make fun of you and would kill you. The book Lord of the Flies is a story about some kids that get stuck in an island by there selves. This book, written by William Golden in 1954 when the world war 2 was taking place. Lord of the flies won the Nobel Prize in Literature award in 1983. In the book a character named piggy is chubby and has asthma and poor eyesight he is also always made fun of by the other kids he is also a symbol of civilization.
Piggy was a stout boy who was different from all the other boys on the island because he had asthma and wore glasses. The glasses throughout the story were used to start a fire, but also