Lord of the Flies
This novel, Lord of the Flies, was written by William Golding. The novel is filled with many symbols, which support the theme to the novel. Throughout this novel you will see Golding use Objects, Characters and settings as symbols. The novel starts with a tropical island, which a group of English boys discover after their plane crashes, killing all the adults on board. The island itself is a symbol. The island is to be the landing place of the crashed plane because an island is isolated from the rest of society. The boys have no contact with the outside world and must look to themselves to solve the problems of their own micro-society. In this way, the island, which symbolizes isolation, serves as a perfect weakness of human nature which eventually comes out. Ralph, a tall boy with "fair hair," seems perfectly calm and almost excited with the fact of being free of adults and on his own in this strange island. Ralph wandered out of the tropical jungle paradise. Ralph thought to himself "We are going to have fun on this island". Ralph was enjoying himself, while his friend Piggy, a pudgy boy with thicklensed glasses was worried. The glasses symbolize the voice of reason and logic among the boys. Piggy defends his glasses even . . .
Ralph, Piggy and Jack are all symbols as well. This shell is the first discovery Ralph and Piggy make on the island, and Ralph blew on the shell to call all the boys together because they were separated by the crash. Throughout the novel he is constantly making commonsense rules for the boys to follow. The pig head tells Simon about all the evil that lies inside each person. In addition, Ralph makes a final request to the boys, mainly Jack, in a fit of fury. While the parachute man is flapping back and forth on the island, making up a powerful image of its death, “the Beast” is prospering under its new control over Jack and most of the other boys on the island. As the boys grow more and more wild, their belief in the beast grows stronger. Jack, who throughout the novel removes the forces opposing him, is afraid of Piggy and eventually kills him to eliminate his moral influence on the group. Piggy was picking thorns from his bare legs and says "I can't move with all these creeper things". Jack later admits to Ralph that he too seems to sense the presence of “the Beast” on the island. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. The fire was very important to the boys in the beginning but towards the end it lost all value and was no longer kept as a main priority. On the way down the mountain, a wild pig crossed the path, but the boys were unable, and not quite willing to kill it. Later on Jack gathered his loyal hunters and struck out into the jungle to become his own tribal chief.
Common topics in this essay:
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