preview

Symbolism In Lord Of The Flies

Decent Essays

Since the beginning of civilization there has been the debate of humanity; what is humanity. What defines humanity? Set during a fictional atomic war during the 1950’s, ‘The Lord of the Flies’, explores the depths of the battle between civilized and savage. Good or evil? The author places a group of schoolboys on an abandoned island, using them as symbols for his meaning of the novel.
Golding uses allegories, satire and symbolism to convey the deeper meaning of his novel, ‘Lord of the Flies’. The author’s style is deceptively simplistic, acting as a mask to its true intentions and meanings. Golding takes a seemingly innocent group of boys and twists their actions to represent the battle of humanity between good vs evil. The story starts off light and simple, the boys stranded on an island via airplane crash, but as the story progresses we see the school boys split into two groups: the Hunters and the Survivors. The Hunters are led by Jack, the main protagonist of the novel, who represents the dark side of human nature. He contrasts Ralph, chief of the Survivors, who is the embodiment of good and civilization. The divide is shown early on, "Ralph sat on a fallen trunk, his left side to the sun. On his right were most of the choir; on his left the larger boys who had not known each other before...before him small children squatted in the grass." (Chapter 2, Page 30). Between these two groups, the reader can see the battle between order and chaos.
The author’s use of children

Get Access