William Golding's Lord Of The Flies: Literary Analysis

When the boys first got on the island they were doing good. They picked a leader, they had rules and they were doing pretty. Unit Jack wanted to be leader and he left the tribe. So that made other kids leave and join his tribe which started a conflict. That ends with them losing their innocence and experiencing the darkness of the man ‘s heart.

In the beginning of Lord Of The Flies, Roger knew that it was not right to throw rocks at littluns. Roger has set up a lever under a rock and put all of his weight on it so the rock would roll down the hill and then “The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee, the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments” (Golding 181). Roger went from not throwing little stones at littluns to crushing Piggy with a large rock. This scene shows how Jack had removed Roger’s morals that he once had towards the other boys. He no longer cared about the damage that he was causing. After Piggy was killed, Jack’s tribe was on the hunt for Ralph. When the boys first got to the island, they all voted Ralph for chief and respected him. When Ralph asked Samneric what they were going to do to him they responded with “Roger sharpened a stick at both ends” (Golding 190). Jack completely changed the boy’s opinions that they had on Ralph, and now want their former chief

This song depicts how the boys felt when they first arrived at the island. They saw that there were no adults and were excited about all the fun they were planning to have together and without parental supervision. The song paints an island in a positive light saying that it's a paradise, just like the boy’s original fantasies.

This relates to the real world where many times violence and physical strength trump nonviolence, and rationality. This shows how a gradual disconnect took place in the time of the boys stay on the island. This disconnect led the children to disdain civility and let out their inner

A tribe of boys crash land on this island, without any adult supervision. The island is beautiful, and consists of “a great platform of pink granite… through forest and terrace and sand and lagoon” (pg 12), and holds many places for shelter and lots of food to survive, such as fruits and wild pigs. Since the island is deserted, and there is no parental supervision, the boys true leadership and survival skills are tested. Most of the boys do not think about their long-term survival but instead act on impulse as a result of these conditions, which is the main theme throughout the novel. The novel’s main theme is to show the result of savagery when there is no order, which is shown through the boys actions when there is no one to tell them what to

Also you can see that there is a lot of symbolism that supports the loss of innocence. In the beginning to the book the group describes the island as a paradise with beaches and fruit, but as the story goes on the island begins to turn “dark”. The reason the island is going “dark” is that the boys are

The lack of adult authority drives the children in the novel to attempt to make important decisions which affect the entirety of the group and in the end cause a rift between the two groups. Jacks group, of course, becomes even more savage after the split and lose their humanity even more. “The three boys stood in the darkness, striving unsuccessfully to convey the majesty of adult life.” (Golding, 102) This conveys the boys’ desire for an authority figure on the island and how it would

The boys on the lone island, simply lost respect for human life and regulation. Adventure is what they wanted and adventure is what they got, but with only having minimal rules the boys lose control both physically and mentally. This disorderly function literally makes the boys act as though they are

Unlike Jack, Roger just hurts people for fun. At first, Roger shows this in a more subtle manner because of society’s expectations that make it taboo to hurt others. When they first arrive at the beach, Roger has some free time. He uses this to tease Henry, a younger boy:

He first began to throw rocks at the littluns and by the end he killed Piggy, a boy on the island. When Piggy and Ralph go to Jack’s tribe to get back Piggy’s glasses, Jack and Ralph get into an argument. Things between the four boys became tense, "High overhead, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever” (180). Roger pushed a boulder down towards the boys and killed Piggy, who couldn’t even see it coming because he didn’t have his glasses. By using the words “leaned all his weight” Golding shows that nothing was holding Roger back from pushing that boulder over and killing Piggy.

Lastly, the boys start a way and turn fully insane, and they kill one kid and burn down the whole island to find one kid. I believe that if the kids had adult supervision none of this would have occurred. Another key thing to remember is that the boys go from trying to establish a community to hostile savages. One of the weirdest images the author portrays in the novel is a dead parachute. This is weird because it's a bunch of kids alone on an island.

Jack is described as having a “crumpled and freckled...face” that was “ugly without silliness”,(Golding 20). This shows to the reader that this character already is a boy with hardly any sense of joy. He arrives on the island leading a group of choir boys, and he feels that since he was the leader there he should be the leader for the rest of the boys on the island as well. Although Jack wishes to be the leader of the boys he finds that one of the only ways to win their approval is by proving himself worthy. So he goes out to try to kill a pig, but when the chance presents itself he finds he is not able to. For when he raised his arm in the air” he “[paused] only long enough/to understand what an enormity the downward stroke would be”(Golding 31). Ever since the moment that Jack was unable to kill his first pig the reader sees how even though he wanted to with most of himself he did not have a distinct killer instinct. Yet as the book continues it becomes prominent that Jack wishes to kill the pig as a way of proving that “their would be no mercy”(Golding 31). Unlike Roger, Jack feels alienated by the act of killing anything as himself, so he decides to paint his face so he may “ hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness” in a freeing kind of way “the mask compelled them”(Golding 64). From the moment that Jack put the mask on he was no longer a boy but now a savage waiting for his next kill. Though Jack and Roger are both antagonists to the book they are different in the reasons behind their kills and violence. While Roger does it to inflict pain, Jack does it with the hope of achieving a sort of dominance and twisted respect from the other boys on the island. Once Jack realized that killing a pig was not as hard as he originally thought, and sees how much respect the boys all had for him after a kill he had no problem with killing the pig;

As soon as the boys landed on the island, their first thought was freedom. “No grownups!” (Golding 8). They were free from the rules of the common, civilized man. They could do whatever they wanted, without their parents leaning over their shoulders dictating their every decision. However, this privilege damaged their lives in an inconceivable way, while gradually deteriorating to savages.

A story of good vs. evil, and the conflict between the boys, nature and in themselves. Innocence is broad and humans tend to be evil. These children are portrayed as innocent, but when they're stranded, they end up conflicting and murdering. While they start out somewhat organized, the power issue occurs between the two who want power most. Then all the boys follow in recklessness.

One major problem that the boys face on the island is savagery. The boys have no civilization on the island which brings out their savage nature. Towards the end of the book two boys are killed, Simon and Piggy. The boys killing people shows an act of savagery because they had no right reason to kill innocent people. Savagery is such a big problem on the deserted island because it causes more challenges for the boys then there already is. One challenge being the boys turning into rivals which tears apart the society. Another challenge being the boys arguing whether Simon's death was accidental or not. Seeing that boys are killed and conflict arises savagery is a major problem that the boys face.