How Does Golding Use Order In Lord Of The Flies

In the novel, The Lord Of The Flies, written by William Golding, The signal fire symbolizes survival, The Beast represents savagery, and the conch shell connotes civilization.

In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding the stranded boys come into contact with some particular elements that represent an idea which are called symbols. These symbols include the beast which represents the fear of the unknown and the darkness of mankind. The second symbol is the signal fire which represents hope. The third symbol is the conch shell which represents order. Golding indicates that when man is taken out of civilization, they have a natural instinct is to become evil, darkness and barbaric and these symbols help to support his opinion.

After several failed attempts, he finally accomplishes his goal, but with a price; he ruins the boys chances of being rescued by letting the signal fire go out and not taking it as seriously as he should. He continuously claims that, “We can light the fire again” (58); his will to be rescued is waning slowly. Ralph addresses these issues with his group expecting them to be re-motivated, but the boys have surprisingly ignored him and resumed playing. Instead of caring about being rescued, the boys start caring more about hunting and doing an interpretive dance inspired by hunting pigs, including one time with Robert “…screaming and struggling with the strength of frenzy”(101). With progressing events, the boys are becoming more and more irresponsible, and their chance of going back to civilization is fading quickly. Soon, a deadly turn of events will ignite their carelessness into something more dangerous and completely unexpected.

At the start of the story the boys worked very hard to create, maintain and keep the fire going. After creating a fire ralph got upset because there was no smoke, and having smoke was a key element to getting rescued. Ralph and the others obviously cared about getting rescued, and working together to achieve that goal. Later, when the boys allow the fire to go out, it displays a shift in priorities. Their desire to be rescued is slowly fading along with their will to remain, rational and civilized

There are many laws and unspoken and logical rules that keep society civil. In the beginning of Lord of the Flies, Roger finds himself throwing minuscule stones at the younger boys, however missing them, due to the conditioning of society. This is a result of the little boys being protected by policemen, parents, school and the law. It is also evident and true that there are other factors that allow for civility to prosper in humanity, some of which are present on the island with the boys, but some factors are extremely scarce. But it is when these factors are mostly absent or diminish, that the idea and foundation of civilization will weaken or fade. William Golding allows symbols to show a complex, yet beautiful and convincing transition from a theme of civility and order, to one of savagery and also moral depravity. The reason for this new theme being that the boys are faced with an internal danger; the true nature of humanity, which fuels the drastic change from innocent boys who abide by rules to rabid animals. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, while the conch symbol best conveys the influence of the adult world on the boys, the conch symbol, paired with the pig hunt motif best conveys the theme of regression into savagery.

The duality of the fire’s purpose and its importance represents the boys’ shift from civilization to savagery. At first, the fire was a signal fire to get rescued. One of their main tasks after arriving on the island was to get rescued. After Ralph was elected chief, he suggested that they should create a signal fire to notify passing ships that there are people on this island; "There's another thing. We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire" (38). To create the fire, they used Piggy’s glasses: "His specs--use them as burning glasses!" (40). The boys’ connections with civilization were still strong as it hasn’t been a long time since their isolation from society.

The boys did not want to help maintain the fire, which resulted in a missed opportunity for rescue. Instead of realizing their situation, the boys wanted to play and hunt. However, Ralph knew what was best for the boys.

To begin, as the smoke elevates so do the boys hopes of going home. The fire represents the notion of home, and rescue. Ralph expresses his shame as he comes to the realization that the boys, Jack in particular, left the fire unattended, “ ‘There was a ship. Out there. You said you’d keep the fire going and you let it out!’ ” (74). Ralph becomes angry as he realizes, there was an adult, a ship, a rescuer, who might have brought them home, however passed because Jack let the fire out. This gives the audience a sense of just how important, home is to Ralph, explaining why the fire plays such an important role in the novel, as the

Not only does Ralph exemplify what it means to not stray from civilization, but Piggy also does too. Piggy is a short, chunky boy who is also stricken with asthma and poor eyesight and whose broad intellect sometimes gets the best of him. Piggy represents the services of rationalism, science, and intellect which society often forgets about. Piggy represents the forces of rationalism through his general thought process. Piggy is livid when the boys rush off to build a signal fire without giving Ralph a chance to process what they ultimately need to do first to boost the chance of the group getting rescued (Golding 45). Piggy does everything in reason, so it is no surprise that he explodes in frustration because the boys never give Ralph a second to speak and decide what they should do. Piggy’s rational thinking causes him to believe that they should light a small fire and wait to build a signal fire so they do not burn the whole forest down (Golding 45). Agnes A. Shields gives a nod to the rational pieces of Piggy by saying that he is the “group’s source of rational thought and knowledge” (1).

Ever since the beginning of the novel, Ralph was fixated on keeping a signal fire going because that was the only hope that they would be rescued. In order to do this, the boys gathered all the dry wood they could find, and used Piggy 's glasses to start a fire. When Ralph first introduced the fire idea, he said, “If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the island. We must make a fire” (38). After this statement was made, the boys all chanted in agreement. For in the beginning of the novel, they all wanted to be rescued, they all wanted to survive, and most importantly, they

The pensive boys collaborated to create ways to escape the island. Ralph, the leader of the group, had the idea to start a signal fire. Once this idea was announced to the assembly the boys dashed to the top of the mountain. After setting the fire, it quickly began to spiral out of control. The soon uncontrollable fire spread down one side of the island. The majority of the boys were mesmerized by the unmanageable fire, while piggy, being the intellectual of the group saw the dangers. The rowdy boys were incited by the fire, but soon after Piggy expressed his concerns. An uncontrollable fire can be deadly, it can be difficult to hinder and Piggy realized this. He expressed his thoughts about the threats the fire could cause to all of them.

In the novel, the boys light a signal fire at the mountain. They hope that the smoke from the fire will attract passing ships so that they can be rescued from the island. The signal fire can be interpreted as a symbol of hope and a gauge for the boy's desire to return to civilization. In the beginning, the hunters put a lot of effort in maintaining the fire, and they were excited to be rescued. However their enthusiasm was short lived, Jack and the hunters begins to neglect the fire and let the fire die out. It is mainly because Jack's obsession to kill the wild pig. To make matters worse, Ralph and Piggy saw a ship on the horizon, and they missed the opportunity to be rescued because of the dead fire. These events can symbolize that their

Savagery is a threat to hope, but does not cause hope to die out. Despite fire’s recurring presence, the fire burns out when the hunters desert their duty to tend the fire and hunt a pig instead. When Ralph discovers that Jack and his hunters neglect the fire, Jack provides a feeble excuse. “[Ralph to Jack] ‘You let the fire go out.’ [...] [Jack insists] ‘You should have seen the blood!’” (Golding 70) When the hunters choose to hunt instead of tending the fire, it represents a descent from the original orderly civilization into savagery. In this scene, Golding hints that savagery threatens Ralph’s hopeful mindset for a civilized tribe, but savagery does not kill hope. By the end of the book, all of the boys become hunters who are regarded as “savages”, murder Ralph’s faithful comrade Piggy, and steal the spectacles along with the fire; Ralph seems to be at rock bottom. Ralph has no one to turn to, nowhere to stay, and no plan for the future as he scrambles to escape a hunt, all the while, unable to see hope in his situation. The narrator speaks, “The best thing to do was to ignore this laden feeling about the heart, […] no fire; no smoke; no rescue,” (Golding). Unfortunately for Ralph, the hunt escalates when Jack’s savage forest fire consumes the

None of the boys helped build the essential shelters and instead chose to play, eat or swim. When Jack returned from hunting and Ralph confronted him about the shelters, his response was that they needed meat and implied that hunting pigs was more important when he said “Next time! I’ve got to get a barb on this spear!” Another instance of when they abandon their responsibilities is when Jack takes some boys from their duties at the fire so that they could circle a pig. A ship went past but the boys had allowed the fire to go out. The importance of what the boys had done was continuously pointed out by Ralph “There was a ship. Out there. You said you’d keep the fire going and you let it out!” while Jack maintained that they had needed everyone to kill the pig. Instead of prioritising like civilised children, they gave in to their savage instincts to hunt pigs and lost their chance of

Rules and order support a society by preventing it from becoming corrupted. Having organization and structure is very important in order to maintain a successful and civilized community. During the Cold War, a school for boys are sent out on a plane to avoid the atomic bombs. While being transported to safety, the plane crashes and the boys become trapped on a mysterious island. After the crash, the boys gather everyone together and elect a chief to lead the group. The two candidates running for chief are Ralph, a rational and kind hearted boy, and Jack, a determined, arrogant, and aggressive figure. One of the other boys known as Piggy helps Ralph to give him logical advice to help the group of boys get rescued. It is their job to form a society