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How Does Golding Use Symbols In Lord Of The Flies

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William Golding's novel 'lord of the flies', published in 1954, conveys the concerns of society, and is a parable focusing on the origin of savagery and evil. It is in the middle of a nuclear war, that a group of young boys are stranded on an island without adult supervision, ultimately leading to their downfall and savagery. The informal and colloquial language helps to describe many of the recurring symbols in Goldings novel. For example, the fire symbolises rescue and destruction. This signal fire becomes a literal signal that the boys connection to civilization may soon come to an end and when it burns out, the readers understand they had lost all hope of being rescued from the island and had accepted their fate of savagery. Golding uses the fires as a signal of hope, though as jack becomes more powerful, he destroys the fires, illustrating his descent as a …show more content…

Golding uses shorter sentences to symbolise violence and tension "I cut the pigs throat" and "there was lashings of blood". The conch was initially used as a tool to summon the boys after being separated from the crash, though as the story progresses we see the conch become a symbol of the fragile grasp of rule and order. It initially represented authority, power and democracy, however it is smashed when Piggy is killed, also shattering these qualities. Piggy's glasses symbolise the weakness of the boys and their loss of humanity and intellect. The glasses provide a literal fire and a symbolic fire driving rationality, insight and reason, though as the story continues, piggy begins to lose that control and jack becomes the holder of the fire. The beast symbolises the power of evil within and a physical manifestation of the beast. It begins to

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