Piggy's Glasses Symbolism

Piggy's glasses were used many times throught out the novel, where the boys of the island in fact found good use in them, and treated his glasses as a symbol of discovery,innovation, and source of civilization on the island such as creating the fire. Once piggy's glasses break, the innovation, and civilization is gone.

At the beginning of the book, Piggy’s glasses are a symbol of his physical weakness which set him apart from the other boys. The boys in school made fun of his “intelligence” and underestimated what he was actually capable of. “Piggy wiped his glasses and adjusted them on his button nose. The frame had made a deep, pink V on the bridge”(Golding 5). This quote informs the reader that Piggy’s glasses are an important part of his identity. Another weakness is that Piggy would be blind and a burden to the group if it wasn’t for his glasses. “Mind out! Give ‘em back! I can hardly see” (Golding 40)!

According to the book, Piggy is a young British boy physically vulnerable to all the boys because of his asthma, being overweight and having to wear glasses. “Piggy wiped his glasses and adjusted them on his button nose. The frame had made

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 is described as an intellectually gifted boy as he possesses knowledge about different facts largely unknown by others. His glasses, with the help of which the signal fire is started, represent the scientific and intellectual power of the society he has been raised in. The meaning of the glasses differs throughout the main characters of Jack, ralph, and Piggy himself, but as a generalization, the glasses of Piggy portray advancement and innovation.

     Piggy in the beginning of the book was using his common sense, he was intelligent, he knew what was right from wrong, and he could condone things that made him angry easily. In the beginning of the book, (pg. ) Ralph told everyone his name was Piggy even though Piggy specifically told Ralph that he didn't like to be called that name Piggy later condoned Ralph's action with great ease. Piggy's action's and behavior depended on his glasses. Piggy and his glasses symbolized intelligence, he represents the rational side of civilization. With the glasses it seemed as though Piggy made all the right choices, and he helped Ralph know what needed to be done with the tribe. Without his

The conch was used to call meetings and whosoever held it, had the power to speak. Jack starts to disobey the conch because he is turning more and more savage-like. “[T]hey closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink,” thought Jack. As the story progresses, Jack realizes he wants to kill pigs, not keep fires going for rescue. Jack shouted, “We don’t need the conch anymore.” At this point in the novel, Golding is showing the reader that because Jack is lusting for power, he is turning into a ferocious monster. By turning into a savage, he has lost all sense of civilization and democracy.

The conflict between Ralph and Jack shows how lack of civilization can result to savagery. Ralph states, “We need shelters” contrasting to Jack who says, “We need meat” (Golding, p.42). The lack of civilization in Jack shows because he thinks hunting is more important than shelters although he has yet to catch a pig, while on the other hand Ralph thinks it’s more important to build shelter for a sense of home and protection from the rain and the beastie that all the littluns are afraid of. “Let him be chief with the trumpet-thing”(Golding, p. 15). This quote states that Ralph should be in charge because he has the conch, and Jack gets upset since he is not voted chief but then Ralph puts him charge of the choir boys who later on become the hunters. Ralph creates civilization when he is given power to become the chief on the island, and he has the power with or without the conch. Later in the novel when Ralph realizes he doesn’t like being dirty and “disliked perpetually flicking the tangled hair put of his eyes,” it shows that Ralph is used the civilization he had before and wants to return to that civilization (Golding, p.66). Then Jack becomes an example of savagery when he shows up to the fire in chapter 8, “stark naked save for the paint and a belt” (Golding, p.125). Ralph and his followers show the civilized and orderly side of the island, but on the contrary, Jack and his tribe show the savagery of man and barbaric side of the island.

Piggy’s glasses symbolize reason and innovation throughout the novel; Golding most commonly associates them with the old camp on the beach. Piggy uses his glasses to help the other boys “see”, both physically and intellectually, the best and most reasonable way forward. However, any time they are removed from the beach, chaos is sure to ensue. The first time, when the boys go to the mountain to light the signal fire, Jack and the other boys pry the glasses off Piggy’s face so they can use them as burning glasses. While this does help to start the signal fire so they can be seen by a ship, it traumatizes Piggy since even at this point in the book, Jack scares him. Despite the good intentions for the fire, it soon goes wild and even results in the death of a littlun.

The conch is one of the most important symbols in the novel because it represents civility on the island and without civility, the whole island would fall into chaos. Golding uses the conch to show what would happen to humans if law and order were removed from humanity. Rules and order are the only things that are keeping the boys from falling into savagery. Jack is one of the first

Jack is showing how savagery is becoming a monster in him. This monster is a threat to social order because it foreshadows what will happen in the future. It shows that Jack will turn full savage and stop following Ralph’s rules. He will create his own tribe and the people in that tribe will all turn into savages too.

Half way in, Jack starts to assimilate how much the killing and torturing of other beings gladdens him.”Jack was on top of the sow, stabbing downward with his knife… The spear moved forward inch by inch and the terrified squealing became a high-pitched scream. Then Jack found the throat and the hot blood spouted over his hands” (Golding 135). Jack’s transformation into a savage does not stop there, towards the end of the story he is depicted as reverting to a total primitive state. “The chief was sitting there, naked to the waist, his face blocked out in white and red. The tribe lay in a semicircle before him. The newly beaten and untied Wilfred was sniffing noisily in the background” (Golding 160). After Jack constructs his own tribe that he is chief of he begins to be further undomesticated in appearance and overall conduct. These instances that depict Jack as a wild savage reveal that he has entirely reached the magnitude of human evil that Golding said all humans eventually capitulate to. Jack can be characterized as a tyrannical dictator who acts as though he is omnipotent and behaves towards subordinates in an unpleasant manner. In the end, once Jack became leader, this represents that evil has subjugated any remaining good, which again proves Golding’s point that all individuals will eventually submit to the inner wickedness within us all.

The conch was used to call meetings but is also symbolic of the government structure and power. One of the main themes in the novel “Civilization vs. Savagery” is fought between two egos, Jack the Id who represents savagery and the desire for power and Ralph the Ego and protagonist, who represents order and leadership. William Golding created a society that was controlled by the dominant ego and influenced mostly by the person with the most manpower. Jack who was the leader of the hunter group influences the rest to join

Piggy’s glasses symbolize knowledge. The glasses also represent society’s reliance upon technology because humans are sometimes weak. The glasses were created to make Piggy’s eyesight better than before. His life is better with the glasses because he can see, without them I don’t know what he would do. Jack slaps the glasses off of Piggy’s face, and in that

The next symbol, Jack, stands for savagery. Jack started on the island as the head of a small choir and left as the chief of a savage tribe. Jack’s tribe believed that hurting and killing was a better way to control a society rather than rules and reasoning. Jack begins to become savage when he applies a face paint “mask” to successfully hunt a pig. Golding writes, “He capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness.” (83). The face paint allowed Jack to embody a savage hunter, his desire to kill a pig becoming an obsession, and once he killed, he craved drawing blood from whatever-- and whoever-- he could. The fundamentals of Jack’s society rely on using force to achieve what is necessary. Robert states, “‘I don't know. He didn't say. He got angry and made us tie Wilfred up. He's been’ --he giggled excitedly-- ‘he's been tied for hours, waiting--’" (223). Tying Wilfred up shows Jack’s affinity towards harming others for no reason, exemplifying a savage mentality simply for his own benefit of being viewed as powerful. His “civilization” revolves around killing and threatening, forcing the boys into the group and making them pay in their own blood to leave. Jack represents savagery because of the way he acts: he harms others for no reason and is far too eager to draw blood. His tribe, run by savagery, is not