Lightness In Lord Of The Flies Essay

Lord of the Flies is a gruesome, dark and intense novel written as a political allegory by the author William Golding. In this novel Lord of the Flies, there are various significant symbols the most being Piggy’s glasses because of how it allows a logical smart boy to see and perform tasks, it becomes a tool of innovation being able to start fires, and how it leads to the destruction of an island.

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

When stranded on an island, objects around may be helpful to survive or get rescued or some may lead to destruction. Well at least that is what happened on an island that teenagers were stranded on. The teenager boys from Lord of the flies, get stranded on an island because their plane crashed. While they are there, one of the boys named Piggy finds a conch. The same boy has glasses, which helps start the fire. The fire is what the boys use to help get rescued. All these objects like the conch, glasses, and fire are very symbolic in the novel. In lord of the Flies, by William Golding, the symbols at the beginning of the novel, like the conch representing civilization, Piggy’s glasses representing intelligence and the fire representing hope,

One example of the presence of evil is the Pig's head. The pigs head symbolizes the Lord of the Flies and negative engery. Evidence to prove the pigs head is an evil figure, is when Simon confonts the pigs head, “There were black and iridescent green and without number; and in front of Simon, the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned.” (Golding,138). That quote shows that the pigs head symbolizes the Lord of the Flies. Another quote is when Ralph faces the pigs head, “ A sick fear and rage swept him. Fiercely he hit out at the filthy thing in front of him that bobbed like a toy and came back, still grinning into his face, so that he lashed and cried out in loathing.” (Golding,185). This quote shows that the pigs head gives a negative feeling to the people who approch it. Another example of the evil presence is the Beast; it depicts savagry. Evidence from the novel is when the boys chant “‘ Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!’” (Golding, 152) along with “Simon's dead body moved out toward the open sea.” (Golding, 154). The quotations show that the boys have turned savage, by their cruel actions and desires to kill. Those symbols represent the belief of evil presence in the novel along with the presence of

Lord of the Flies is a book that uses symbolism. One notable example of this is Piggy’s glasses. Everyone on the island thought that Piggy was not useful. He was not helping the group survive. He did not like to help when the others were gathering supplies to build their huts or hunting for food. The group thought it was not an issue to take Piggy’s glasses to start the fire.In the novel it stated “Piggy took off his damaged glasses and cleaned the remaining lens.”(page 101). This shows that piggy's glasses were already cracked where he could not see out of them anyway. His glasses turned out to be one of the main reason the kids survived. Without Piggy’s glasses they would not have been able to start the signal fire and ships would not have found them.

The novel, The Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, applies a variety of symbols to represent how the boys use tangible items in attempt to stay civilized and become savage. When the boys first land on the island, Ralph, later know as the chief, finds a glamorous shell, the conch. He uses the conch to call meetings when one is due, and the boys use the conch to control the flow the gatherings. They may only speak if they are holding the conch: "The conch goes to the next person to speak" (Goulding 33). The conch unites the boys in an orderly and organized way.

Lord of the Flies is an allegorical book. The book has a lot of symbolism throughout the story. In the beginning of the story, a group of boys were stranded on an island but as the story progresses a group of boys, Jack’s choir, became ravenous of pigs. The three symbols I will be writing is Piggy’s specs, the beast, and Paint faces of Jack’s tribe. Three of them will possibly reveal the hidden message.

The Lord of the Flies represents the hidden nature of mankind, bringing out the prominent evil through harsh circumstances of pressure, similar to the conch, which brings out civility in the boys. While the Lord of the Flies and the conch are opposites in symbolism, they both have control over the boys and influence their actions. From the beginning, the conch is seen as a powerful object as Ralph could use it to exert control over the boys, “He had to wave the conch before he could make them hear him” (Golding 37). Despite being wild and raucous boys, one simple wave of the conch silenced them. The conch calmed them down and restored order in the assembly, showing its influence on the boys’ civility and behavior.

The conch shell plays a big role because it is an actual vessel of political legitimacy and democratic power. And Ralph and piggy are the ones to stumble across it along the beach and decide to use it as a speaking tool, so whomever holds it has the power to speak among the people who are at the island “Piggy” the most intelligent, rational boy in the group, and his glasses represent the power of science and intellectual in society. This symbol is clear from the start of the book, when the boys use the lenses of Piggy’s glasses to focus the sunlight and start a fire that’s when Jack’s hunters raid Ralph’s camp and steal the glasses, the savages effectively take the power to make fire, leaving Ralph’s group helpless. The signal fire, plays a huge part in lord of the flies because it is the only thing that the boys have in order to be rescued and it was so precious to them just like how money and gold is so precious today. The government today is buying up all the gold and giving cash in return. Just like how we need money to survive, they need the fire to have a better chance of

We all know Lord of the Flies doesn’t end well nor has an happy ending, but if you followed an object as simple as the conch, you will realize that something so simple can cause an uproar in these kids expedition. These kids were stranded and left with all the resources they had, which was the whole island. To keep everyone in peace, the boys used the conch to let everyone know who is the boss, which is anyone that is holding the conch. The conch is powerful to the story because it symbolized something different to each character, leadership, power, a simple object, and a way to take advantage. The kids, Ralph, Jack, and Piggy played a big part of the story and is the reason why the story turned out the way is it.

Greek and Roman culture reference the ideology of multiple gods in many times in their ideology and culture. In ancient mythology, especially the Greek and Roman culture average people apotheosize into a luminous deity. The light is often seen as the good and darkness seen evil in these tales. Light too signifies purity, for example, white robes or white dresses. In Golding’s tale, he writes a story about boys stuck on an island in which the most kindhearted one is mercilessly killed by the rest.

“A stain in the darkness, a stain that was Jack, detached itself and began to draw away”(Golding 121).The evil that is presented in Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, highlights the overall darkness in the novel and foreshadows the loss of civilization throughout the boys. Never letting go, the striplings soon gave up, and inevitably turned out to be savages as seen when Jack unfolds his inner beast after assembling his own tribe. Deserted on the island, there is no significant alternative on why the boys have gone savage other than the loss of civilization. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, Golding depicts the theme in which Civilization, death, the loss of innocence,the gaining of unknown knowledge, and fear come into play with the striplings

Fire, in today’s society, is used for several different reasons including warmth, cooking, and destruction while prescription glasses have mainly one purpose, to help aid in eyesight. But for Piggy, the most rational of the group, and Ralph, the leader of all the kids, fire and a pair of bifocals are solely used for survival. Jack on the other hand, who is the leader of the savages, uses fire to harm and control others around him. Lord of the Flies by William Golding acquires an elaborate way to develop deeper meanings of each of the symbols especially fire and Piggy’s glasses.

William Golding, the author of Lord of the Flies, includes many metaphors, often incredibly dark ones, in his writing. In Lord of the Flies he has some very important metaphors about human nature. He shows this very strongly with many characters. Specifically, Jack, Piggy, and Simon; the human representations of savagery, reason, and human goodness. The book is named because of a pig that gets killed and gets its head put on a stick. The pig head attracts flies, hence the name, Lord of the Flies. Throughout the book there are many symbols but, I believe the pig to be the strongest symbol that truly shows the depths of human nature through the traits of many characters in the book according to their personal relationship to the pig. The pig shows, in more ways than one, how there is a beast inside of all of us, it just takes longer for some to let it out.

Lord of the Flies has symbols throughout the story, each character brings a different point of view. Piggy, Ralph, and Jack take a leading role with all the boys, although they vote Ralph in charge both of the other boys take a leadership position. Goulding uses the boys to show the faults of mankind and the roots of all evil. Four symbols Goulding used in the novel were: Piggy’s glasses, the Conch Shell, The Beast, and Simon’s hiding place. Therefore, the symbols show the true character of the boys who are stranded on an island.