How Golding Presents the Decline from Civilisation to Savagery in Lord of the Flies

In addition to his actions, Simon’s encounter with evil further characterizes him as a Christ figure and an oracle archetype. The novel’s title, Lord of the Flies, originates from a mistranslation of Beelzebub, another name for the devil. The sacrificed sow head on a spear, called the Lord of the Flies, symbolizes the devil. Since Simon’s confrontation with the Lord of the Flies occurs in the midst of a delusion, it can be considered a prophecy similar to an oracle’s vision. Both Christ and Simon meet with the devil while in altered physical states. Simon’s confrontation with the Lord of the Flies is a result of severe dehydration and an epileptic fit indicated by “a pulse [that] began to beat on the brain” which parallels Christ’s meeting with the devil during the forty days he went into the wilderness without food or drink (Golding 138). In his vision, Simon realizes that “things are what they are” because

Throughout the novel Lord Of The Flies, the boys on the island are continuously faced with numerous fears. Subsequently there is nothing on the island which they fear more than the beast. The beast is not a tangible object that can be killed or destroyed by conventional means, but an idea symbolizing the primal savage instincts within all people. Its Golding’s intention to illustrate the innate evil inside man through his view of human nature, the actions of the Jack and his tribe, and the relationship between the beast and the school boys.

William Goldning’s Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel where literary techniques are utilized to convey the main ideas and themes of the novel. Two important central themes of the novel includes loss of civilization and innocense which tie into the concept of innate human evil. Loss of civilization is simply the transition from civilization to savagery; order to chaos. The concept of loss of innocense is a key concept to innate human evil because childhood innocense is disrupted as the group hunted animals and even their own. Through the use of literary techniques these ideas are seen in the passage where Simon confronts the “Lord of the Flies.”

Throughout Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the flies persist as a symbol of multiple concepts or themes. The flies in Lord of the Flies represent the devil, darkness, and foreshadows dark events that will happen to the characters that stumble upon them. During the book, Jack, in addition to his hunters stumble upon a pig and kill it to sacrifice to the beast. They “jammed the soft throat down on the pointed end of the stick” then nickname it the Lord of the Flies because the flies surround the pig (Golding 137). The Lord of the Flies literally translates to Beelzebub, which is one of many representing names for the devil. The devil can be seen as pure darkness, and the flies have a meaning of darkness in the story. When Simon discovers

The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is an allegory that connects the boys’ behavior in the novel to the basic behavior of human nature. In the novel, the boys fear a wild beast that has the potential to kill them off. However, Simon, a quiet boy, finds that the beast is not an animal that everyone should fear, but is a part of each boy himself.

The tragedies that unfold their civilization occur when they brutally beat Simon to death. After Jack and his hunters place the mother sow’s head in the forest as an offer to the beast they think exists, Simon encounters it and sees that it is covered in flies. Suddenly, the head started to talk to Simon as he feels like he is going to faint. It identifies itself to be the Lord of the Flies. It says, “You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?” (Golding 158). Simon then realizes that there is no physical beast, but a mental beast in each and every boy on the island. They all went from being joyful to a bunch of savages. Their

Simon was the only person in the book who interacted with the so-called beast. He saw that the physical form of the beast as the Lord of the Flies, a sow's head on a stick. Fear would have been struck through Simon as he heard the pig say: "There isn't anyone to help you only me. I'm the beast." Simon tried to run back to the camp but he came at the wrong time and was mistaken as the beast and was brutally

According to the image in Document B, Simon is shown to be on the ground and raising an arm up to shield himself from the “Lord of the Flies”, which is the pig head carcass personified by Simon’s inner voice. Since the “Lord of the Flies” refers to Beelzebub or the devil, it represents evil, and the evil is expressed when the “Lord of the Flies” taunts Simon. Therefore, as with Simon, every person contains a “Lord of the Flies” within them, meaning everyone carries evil in themselves. During one of the assemblies, “Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s essential illness” (Document C). The quote shows Simon catching on about how the beast might not actually be an external existence. Instead, he tries to propose how the beast is, in reality, everybody’s essential evilness. Thus, Simon’s experiences make the idea of the beast symbolizing the evil within everyone

William Golding’s modern classic, Lord of the Flies showcases a group of boys stranded on an island, in hopes of rescue and survival. This depicts how a society of boys would function if civilization had not been forced on them. Moreover, this novel shows us Golding’s inner kept judgement of the function of society. The boys first meet together on the island by using what later becomes a symbol of law; the conch. It is first used as an object to keep order amongst the boys, but later becomes the center of conflict between two clashing tribes. It represents the battle between order and chaos, and the outcome is Golding’s view of which rules in society. A constant occurrence in the book is the bullying of the characters, Simon and Piggy. Although these characters contributed greatly to the development of the group, their actions were never appreciated. They were both outcasts in the tribe, never listened to, nor included in any conversations. Golding represents these characters as religion and intelligence, and so the outcast of these boys gives us a window into which parts of society the author deems are valuable and unnecessary. Jack, the antagonist in the book is portrayed as a vile, aggressive creature. He and his hunters become obsessed with bloodshed and macabre, and so they kill to satisfy their needs. What starts as killing pigs for meat as a means of survival, soon turns into an addiction for blood leading to a bloodbath between the boys. The constant hunger for

Humans kill, whether it be animals, insects or people. The justice system is used to try and fix what others have done and in this way they are punished. They are punished in a functioning society with rules and laws, but when all that is stripped away, we are left with mass destruction and humans that kill. The novel Lord of the Flies, published in 1954 and written by Nobel Prize winning author, William Golding, portrays the violence and eradication of a functioning society through young boys stranded on an island. Golding uses the symbol fire and forgetfulness of the need for it to develop the theme of the loss of society and creation of uncivilized destruction.

All throughout this novel the boys are called to meetings to discuss the rules, the fire, and many other assorted things. One of these things is a beast that comes in the night but does not leave foot prints or any trail at any time. All the boys are very afraid of this beast and what it may do to them if it gets hold of them. As it turns out the beast is in the boys: "'You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you?'"(172). This is the "lord of the flies," also known as the beast, talking to Simon the first boy murdered. The beast is their unwillingness to maintain a civilization; it is their transformation into savages. All the time at all these meetings the boys respect the conch and whoever held the conch was respected, even if he was not liked. Once this symbol of

The novel “Lord of the Flies” was written by William Golding to demonstrate the problems of society and the sinful nature of man.

"Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything - except his own nature." This quote from Henry Miller demonstrates that even the best of people can be tempted and twisted by their own nature. Like the symbolic pig’s head stuck in the calm forests clearing, all beauty and innocence can be mutated when order is overthrown by impulse actions. In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, a central theme exists demonstrating the deterioration of civilization, and the overpowering of savagery, leading to the abandonment of moral thoughts and actions within a person. The beauty of the island is burned away slowly as the fiery demon of savagery attempts to overwhelm the boys. The beauty of the island symbolizes the charm of law and

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, narrates the story of a group of English boys as they struggle to survive on an uncharted, uninhabited island. The boy’s airplane crashes into the island and kills any adults on board -- leaving the boys to fend for themselves. Ralph and Piggy meet each other first and, upon Piggy’s counsel, Ralph decides to call a meeting of all the boys by blowing on a conch shell. The boys quickly begin to form a society in which they elect Ralph as their leader. A boy called Jack quietly disagrees and believes that he should lead the group. As times passes, Jack and his choir become hunters for the rest of the boys and they begin to enjoy the ways of a predator. As Jack grows more savage, he becomes unhappy with the

Lord of the Flies depicts the disintegration of the order and the collapse of the harmony mainly embedded in the conflict between Ralph and Jack, the two competing leaders in the novel. The story is set in the middle of the raging war, when a plane evacuating a group of schoolboys from Britain is shot down on a deserted island. Two of the boys, Ralph and Piggy, discover a conch and make use of it to assemble other boys. Piggy, who is the