Lord Of The Flies 10 Essay, Research Paper
Lord of the Flies
In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, a group of boys revert from civilized children to savages. The boys are stranded on a tropical island with no adults in authority to tell them what to do. Only one tool, a knife, and their intelligence provide the boys with the ways to survive. The story shows how the boys gradually loose their ability to behave in a socially acceptable way. They divide into two groups. One group tries to stay with normal behaviors. The other group changes into irrational savages. This descent into savagery is conveyed to the reader through the use of symbolism.
The boys themselves represent the different facets of society from the calm and rational to the disorganized and irrational. Two of the boys have leadership skill. Ralph, one of the oldest of the boys, is voted in as the first leader. He brings all of the boys together and starts trying to figure out a way for the boys to get rescued. He sets up a signal fire. If any passing ships come by they may see the smoke and come and rescue them. Jack is the oldest of all of the boys and starts going along with Ralph. He slowly drifts away from what is wanted of him. He gets a group of kids together to go pig hunting. While they are hunting, the fire goes out. Ralph gets very angry with Jack for letting that happen. So Jack decides to form his own group. His group is called the hunters. The only things they live for is hunting pigs and killing the beast. They never really care if they ever get off the island. Ralph, the politician symbolizes a civilized and rational person; Jack, the hunters, symbolizes the uncivilized and irrational (1).
Two boys are the victims in the story. Piggy, the fat, nearsighted asthmatic, is a rationalist who functions as Ralph’s Prime Minister. He is the intelligent one. It is Piggy who teaches Ralph how to use the conch. Because Piggy has asthma, he can’t blow into it himself (1). He has almost all…
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