simon lord of the flies character analysis essay

Lord of the Flies

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• Lord of the Flies

Read below our complete notes on the novel “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding. Our notes cover  Lord of the Flies summary, themes, characters, and analysis.

Introduction

Lord of the Flies is written by William Golding who is a Nobel Prize-winning author and is published in 1954.  This novel investigates the darker side of humankind; the viciousness that underlies even the most civilized and cultivated people.

William Golding proposed this novel as a satiric tale of adventure of children, delineating mankind’s inborn evil nature. He presents the audience with a sequence of occasions driving a gathering of little fellows from hope to catastrophe as they endeavor to endure their graceless, segregated condition until saved. It is listed in the Modern Library of 100 Best Novels.

Lord of the Flies is a short story by William Golding about a group of boys who get caught on an island because of the crashing of a plane. Ralph and Piggy are the ones who meet initially.

Then Ralph blows a conch shell that produces a horn-like sound, brings numerous surviving boys young men come running and they all consent to remain together and make Ralph their pioneer. They all stroll around the island gathering food and making a sanctuary when Ralph and Jack get into a dispute about the initiative and the monster they have been scanning for this entire time.

At that point, they split up into two gatherings and have a gigantic battle toward the end that truly executes Piggy in light of a freestone hitting him. At last, all the boys all get saved by an official of the Navy who sees the smoke from the enormous fire on the island.

Setting of the Novel

The setting of the novel is an uninhabited island where a plane carrying a number of children crashes. this novel becomes a representative depiction of the Earth, where Humans develop civilizations, the group of the boys in the leadership of Ralph, which are then destructed by the humans themselves, Jack and his hunters destroy, this results in the creation of new nations, Ralph leads one group while Jack leads the other, then wars take place and it makes the people believe in new religious faiths as the boys on the island start believing in the Lord of the Flies.

Context of the Novel

World War II impacted the subjects and setting of this novel. The war changed the lens through which individuals in general and William Golding specifically saw the world. World War I was for a long time called the War to End All Wars. World War II refuted that thought and made another feeling that individuals are ingrained with warlike traits, power-hungry, and savage. While the setting of the novel is not of World War II, it very well may be seen as Golding’s variant of World War III. Just a couple of brief references to the war outside the young boys on the island show up in the novel, however, references to a nuclear bomb exploding an air terminal and the “Reds” clarify that the war includes atomic weapons and “Reds.”

Lord of the Flies Summary

A boy of twelve-years comes out of the plane on an island. When he comes out of the wrecked plane, he sees another fat boy who is wearing glasses. The former is Ralph while the latter is Piggy. This is Piggy’s nickname and does not like this name but Ralph decides to call him Piggy despite his protests. The readers come to know that the boys have nearly escaped death in a plane crash and the island where they have survived is somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.  These boys reveal that they have been flying from their home country because of the fear of atomic war.

They think that the whole world has died in the atomic war and they might have to live on the island without the intervention of the adults. Ralph starts swimming in the water and Piggy tells him about his background that his parents are dead and he lives with his aunt who owns a candy shop. In the meanwhile, Piggy notices a conch shell and retrieves it with the help of Ralph. He tells Ralph that it can be very useful for them while living on the island.

Piggy tells Ralph how to produce sound through the shell and to the surprise of the boys, after two sounds of the conch shell, other survivors start to come towards them. These include Eric and Sam, who are twins, Jack who is the head of a group of boys. The group of Jack is wearing strange caps and cloaks of black color. Jack informs Ralph that he is the leader of this group.

 Jack wants to lead the group for survivors but through the votes, Ralph is elected as chief of the group.  Ralph then decides to take along Jack and Samson to explore the island and find some food. Piggy wants to go with them but Jack humiliates Piggy.

In the evening, there is a meeting of the boys and Ralph tells the boys that they are on an island and there is no human being other than the group. Jack, Ralph and Simon inform them about their exploration of the journey in the morning. Then they establish the rules of the meetings and day to day activities.

They decide that they will have fun until the grown-ups from the outside world to rescue them. In the meeting, a boy of six-years asks them what would the group do against snakes and other such animals. Ralph tells him that snakes are there in Africa and the island is not in Africa so nobody should be concerned about it. But Ralph notices the signs of fear on the faces of other boys, too. Ralph suggests building fire on the top of the mountain so that it could signal to the world and they could be saved from the island. Jack gathers his group to build fire.

The boys gather the wood and about to start the fire but they do not know how to ignite the fire. Piggy suggests that his glasses might be used for starting a fire. The boys lit the fire but it finished soon. They are all sad about it. Anyhow, they start the fire once again. Then they decide to make some shelters for living as well. The boys again see a snake and Piggy notices that one of the boys is missing.

Jack looks to hunt some pigs. The appearance of Jack shows that it has been a long time that the boys are on the island. He gets frightened by the pigs and returns back to the group. Ralph tells Jack that the boys are not working properly and that the boys are spending their time swimming. Jack tells him that he should act as a leader and order all the boys to work harder otherwise they all will end up in death. Ralph tells Jack that he must bring some meat for the boys but Jack tells him that the boys are not good hunters and he himself has to do all the work. He vows again to hunt down a pig.

They both argue about the contribution to the living of the boys when Simon comes and tells them that the little boys are frightened because of the snakes. Ralph advises Jack that he must keep the fire in his view while hunting in the forest. Both of them go and look at the fire whether the fire is strong enough to be seen from a faraway distance or not. They return and look for Simon but he is not found anywhere. Afterwards, both boys go swimming.

Simon goes into the jungle alone and catches some fruits for the little boys and then spends some time in the jungle until the dawn appears.

The boys get adjusted to the way of life on the island. The atmosphere is usually hot in the day and cool in the night but the boys adjust to the weather. The littluns group of the boys who are the youngest search for food throughout the day. They are the ones who suffer a lot from diarrhea. They also are very much afraid of the animals. They believe that some of the boys are eaten by these animals in the darkness of the nights.

Jack is disappointed with his failure as a hunter. He thinks that the animals watch him so that is the reason he is unable to hunt them down. Resultantly, Jack rubs charcoal over his face and makes it is a sort of mask which he thinks would hide him from the animals.

One day, they see a ship passing through the water but it is very distant and they can see the signal of fire in the ship. Ralph tells them that their own fire is weak enough to give the ship the signal. Ralph runs to the mountain but the ship passes without seeing them. Ralph blames all those who are responsible for this weak fire.

In meanwhile, Jack and his hunter group return from the forest and they carry a bid dead big. Piggy is upset because they have lost the opportunity. He blames Jack and both of them argue. Jack punches Piggy during which one of the lenses of Piggy’s glasses breaks down. He then apologizes to Piggy.

Ralph is not happy with the situation going into the forest. Thus he calls for a meeting to make some important decisions. He warns all of the boys that they are not making serious hard work and it can turn out to be disastrous for them. Ralph blames them as they have not built the shelters correctly and also the fire is on a weaker side which can seriously reduce their chances of escape. He also assures the group there are no monsters on the island.

Jack stands up and curses the small boys for being afraid of the animals and he makes them believe that there is no beast on the island. One of the boys tells them that he has been able to see a pig near the shelters. Jack dismissed them but Simon also approves the notion of the small boy that he has also seen the pig near the shelter. Jack taunts Piggy and they both start a fight. Ralph stops them and tells them they must follow the rules. Jack asks him who cares about the rules. Jack vows to kill the beast and breaks the assembly by going for a hunt.

Ralph thinks that if this time Jack does not come for the meeting so their union would be broken and he would become a savage animal. Piggy tells Ralph that he should not step down from the leadership because if Jack becomes the leader he would only hunt and they might not be able to return forever.

That night, there is an aerial war and there are sounds of explosions. This results in a dead pilot who lands on the top of a mountain on the island. The boys on the duty find a dead body in the morning. They awake Ralph and tell him about the beast. The meeting is called once again and they all argue about the existence of the beast.

Ralph wants to spend some time in solitude and he goes into the undiscovered path of the island. He enjoys the mountains and caves in that part of the island. He soon gets frustrated because the firs, he thinks, is not strong to signal to the ship. He goes back to strengthen the fire. He wants the group to be rescued from the island while on the other hand, Jack thinks that they can build a fort on the island and stay there on the island.

The boys search and continue their hunt. Ralph sees his appearance and thinks that he has totally changed and looks very dirty. The boys go to the opposite side of the island. This spot is exactly the opposite of the place where the boys have shelters. The view of the island and the sea is totally different here. Ralph loses hope of return but Simon assures him that he would eventually leave the island and reach their homes.

In the afternoon, they discover the droppings of the pig. Jack asks the boy if they need to continue the search for the beast but if they find the pig it can additionally be hunted down. Ralph is new in hunting and it excites him.

A boar appears and they start to shoot it down. Jack`s left forearm gets wounded. They chant and continue their search but soon they realize that this might prove dangerous for them. Ralph considers that the boys are getting savage and violent.

In the evening, the boys go to the mountain for the fire but Ralph is pessimistic about his return. Jack wants to go to the beach for hunting but Ralph is not interested because he thinks that leaving the small boys with Piggy is not secure and that the light is very dim, too. Ralph senses that Jack hates him and he asks him the reason for hate but Jack has no answer.

Jack again vows that he is going to kill the beast. He then mocks Ralph that he is not accompanying Jack in the hunt. Jack then sees something on the top of the mountain and feels frightened. Ralph agrees to join him. They see an ape sleeping. When the boys get to know this, they are terribly frightened.

In the morning, the boys discuss the event of the night. Jack assures the boys that he can kill the beast with his hunter group. Ralph dismisses the idea because he thinks that it is dangerous to hunt down such a big beast. Jack asks the boys that Ralph considers them coward. Jack also blames that Ralph is not a proper chief because he is very cowardly. Jack asks the boys they must expel Ralph from the leadership of the group but no one agrees with the idea of Jack. Jack then announces that he is going to leave the group of Ralph and he goes away.

Piggy suggests that they should make another area for the fire which could be visible. They then locate a place near the beach for fire. Ralph notices that some of the boys are missing. Simon is also missing but he is gone to an isolated place. Piggy thinks that they can do well without Jack but they need to use their common sense.

On the other side, Jack announces himself as the leader of the hunters. He decides to kill the pig to have a good feast. They find a group of pigs and kill one among them. They leave the head of the pig as a gift for the beast. Simon sees the flies buzzing around the head of the pig from his private place.

Ralph thinks that the boys should be rescued soon otherwise they all will end up dying on the island.

Jack then comes to Ralph and tells the boys to join the group of hunters because they have feast and fun.

  Chapter 9

Simon falls asleep in his private place. When he wakes up he is confused as to what to do. He also catches sight of a beast on the mountain. Simon sees that the beast has a head of man, this causes him to vomit. He then goes to Ralph to tell the boys what he has seen.

Ralph and Piggy play in the lagoon and feel that all the boys have a good time to enjoy the feast of Jack.  They decide to go to the boys and tell them that things are in control and they would be rescued soon.

They reach the place and see that all the boys are enjoying the feast, while Jack is their leader. Jack sees Piggy and Ralph and orders the boys to offer them sow to eat. After the feast, Jack asks the boys to join his tribe and most of the boys go into Jack’s tribe. Ralph gets disappointed with the scene. Ralph tries to convince the boys but Jack starts arguments with him again.

Piggy asks Ralph to leave because things are getting serious in between Ralph and Jack. Ralph tells the boys that rain is around the corner and they are not prepared for the shelter. However, the boys get engaged in the dance party. Simon comes to tell them about the parachutist but the boys are mad at dancing and they chase Simon and beat him to death.

The rain intensifies and the boys are forced to run towards the shelter. Meanwhile, the dead boys of the parachutist fly in the air because of the fast wind. The boys get more terrified. They believe that it is the beast.

Ralph is angry over the death of Simon. Piggy tells him that he participated in the death of Simon because he behaved violently and he died accidently. But Ralph is broken over the death.

They think that all the boys except Sam and Eric have left for Jack’s tribe.

Four of them discuss the events of last night but they try to avoid the subject of Simon’s death. Roger, at the other, tries to enter the camp of Jack. Once he enters the camp, he sees that Jack`s behavior has turned violent and savage.

On the other hand, Ralph and his three companions try to start a fire again but because they are little in number the job seems difficult for them. The night falls and they go to their shelter.

The boys do not sleep well because they are afraid. They hear some sounds and notice that Jack along with his boys is attacking their shelters. They suffer injuries and Piggy tells them the boys came for the glasses of piggy.

The boys gather wounded and injured. They try to start a fire again but they do not have the glasses of Piggy so it is impossible for them. They need the glasses because it is the only hope for fire and their rescue. Piggy decides to go to Jack and appeals to his justice so that he could return glasses. He also wants to tell Jack that he must behave wisely and that he should wear clothes.

They reach Jack’s camp but the guards of Jack’s camp throw stones at them and ask them to leave. Jack appears with his group carrying a large dead pig. Ralph asks him that he must return the glasses of Piggy. Ralph calls him a thief and Jack attacks to stab Ralph but he saves himself.

Both the boys fight. Ralph tells him that fire is their only hope for survival and the glasses should be returned. Jack orders his boys that they should tie Sam and Eric. The boys hold them and tie them up. Ralph and Jack again fight and Ralph calls Jack a swine. Piggy shouts and tells him that he wants to talk to all the boys. He tells the boys whether they want to be like savage Indians or to behave like humans and try to be like Ralph. He adds that they should live in accordance with the rules rather than only kill and feast. He tells them the rules of Ralph are for their rescue. Suddenly, a rock falls from the mountain over Piggy and he is crushed by the rock.

The group is silent but Jack attacks Ralph and he runs away to save himself.

Ralph runs and hides in the jungle. He is very concerned about the barbaric behavior of the boys. He also thinks that the boy might not be able to come into civilization. He decides to fight because he thinks that Jack would not leave him alive.

Suddenly Ralph notices the fire and realizes that Jack has set the jungle on fire to find Ralph. Ralph is worried because he thinks that this is going to destroy all the fruit on the island.  He runs to the beach and notices that the hunters are after him. He is terrified and senses that the hunters are very close to him.

Ralph reaches the beach and falls over with terror. He then sees a naval officer looming over him. He tells him that his ship noticed smoke so they decided to investigate the matter. The boys run and chase Ralph and the officer slowly gets to know the violent nature of the boys. The boys try to tell the officer their names but they no longer remember their addresses. They do not know how many boys are there on the island. The officer scolds them for going away from civilization by behaving savagely.

Ralph realizes that their innocence is dead and there is darkness in their hearts.

Themes in Lord of the Flies

The repercussions of the war.

Lord of the Flies is to some extent a moral story of the Cold War. It is about the negative impacts of war on the life of people and for social connections. This novel is written in the era of the Cold War and it reflects the threat of the atomic war between Britain and “the Reds.” Golding along these lines presents the peaceful strains as coming full circle into a deadly clash in his novel against the perils of ideology, or “cold,” fighting.  

In addition, we may comprehend the contention among the young men on the island is a representation of the contention between the Communist forces and the Western Democratic Powers. Ralph, who stands for a democratic system, has a conflict with Jack, who symbolizes military tyranny, for example, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. J ack is wearing a dark cape with blazing red hair, and this symbolizes his connection to the “Reds” because the main color of the Reds was black and red. As the strain between the young men goes to a wicked head, the readers see the hazardous results of an ideological clash.

The appearance of the maritime official towards the end of the story underscores these metaphorical focuses. The official epitomizes war, and this connects him to the fierce Jack. The official is English and in this manner connected to the popularity based side of the Cold War, which the novel eagerly shields. The ramifications of the official’s quality are provocative: Golding proposes that even a war pursued the sake of development can lessen mankind to a condition of savageness. A definitive scene of the novel, wherein the young men sob with melancholy for the loss of their blamelessness, involves contemporary readers in the young men’s disaster. The young boys show the wartime driving forces of the period.

Man versus Nature

Lord of the Flies presents the subject of man’s optimal relationship with this world. The novel is set in the natural habitat of the island, in which there are no people before the group of the boys, the boys expound various mentalities towards nature that mirror their particular characters and ideological understandings. The boys` connections to the normal world, for the most part, can be categorized as one of three classifications: enslavement of nature, congruity with nature, and subservience to nature.

The primary class which is an oppression of nature is typified by Jack, whose motivation on the island is to track, chase, and murder pigs. He tries to force his human will on the world of nature, enslaving it according to his wants. Jack’s later activities, specifically setting the jungle on fire, mirror his extending scorn for nature and exhibit his violent and savage character.

The subsequent class is harmonious with nature and is typified by Simon. He discovers excellence and harmony in the common habitat as exemplified by his underlying retreat to the place of seclusion in the jungle. For Simon, nature isn’t man’s adversary however it is a part of the experience of man.

The third classification is obedience to nature and it is encapsulated by Ralph. He takes the contrary position from Jack’s stance. In contrast to Simon, Ralph doesn’t discover serene amiability with the world of nature like Jack. He comprehends it as an impediment to human life on the island.

 However, while Jack reacts to this apparent clash by acting damagingly towards animals on the island and vegetation, Ralph reacts by withdrawing from the common world. He doesn’t take an interest in chasing or in Simon’s outings to the woods. He remains on the seashore, the most refined piece of the island. As Jack’s chasing communicates his vicious nature to different readers, Ralph’s craving to remain separate from the world of nature stresses his hesitancy to entice risk and his liking for human advancement.

Savagery as an opposite to Civilization

One of the main themes of Lord of the Flies is the contention between the human motivation towards brutality and the principles of progress which are intended to contain and limit it. All through the novel, the contention is sensationalized by the conflict between Jack and Ralph. These characters portray savagery and civilization, respectively. 

The varying philosophies are communicated by the perspective power of every boy towards power and authority. While Ralph utilizes his position to set up rules, he ensures that the group is going to be beneficial and incorporates the good and moral codes of the English society in the young boys but Jack is keen on picking up control over different young men to satisfy his basic instinctive forces. 

At the point when Jack starts leading the hunters and then the tribe, he asks for the total subservience of all the young boys, who serve him as well as love him as a leader. Jack’s craving for power proposes that viciousness doesn’t look like rebellion to such an extent as an authoritarian arrangement of misuse and unlawful force.

Golding’s focus on the repercussion of brutality can be taken as opposite to the civilization of humans. In the initial parts of the novel, he proposes that one of the significant elements of a society that is civilized and cultures is to give an outlet to the savage driving forces that dwell inside every person. 

Jack’s underlying want to slaughter pigs to exhibit his boldness, for instance, is directed into the chase, which gives required nourishment to the whole gathering. For whatever length of time that he lives inside the standards of human progress, Jack isn’t a risk to different boys of the group. His driving forces are being re-coordinated into a beneficial assignment. When Jack does not acknowledge the legitimacy of society and rejects Ralph’s position brings out the perilous parts of his character. Golding recommends that while brutality is maybe an inevitable certainty of human presence, civilization can relieve its dangers.

The conflict between Jack and Ralph that stands for Savagery and Civilization is imparted through the novel’s significant images. The conch shell is related to Ralph, and The Lord of the Flies is related to Jack. The conch shell is an incredible marker of democratic system on the island, affirming both Ralph’s authority controlled by the political decision and the intensity of collecting the boys into a group. However, as the contention between Jack and Ralph extends, the conch shell loses representative significance. 

Jack proclaims that the conch is good for nothing as an image of power and request, and its decrease in significance flags the decay of human advancement on the island. Simultaneously, The Lord of the Flies, which is a contribution to the legendary brute on the island, is progressively contributed with noteworthiness as an image of the predominance of viciousness on the island, and of Jack’s position over different young men. 

The Lord of the Flies symbolizes the unification of the young men under Jack’s leadership which is advocated through fear and punishment for those who do not approve his orders. The obliteration of the conch shell at the location of Piggy’s killing implies the total destruction of human civilization on the island, while Ralph’s destruction of The Lord of the Flies portrays his own plunge into viciousness and savagery. By the last scene, brutality has totally dislodged human progress as the overarching framework on the island.

Loss of Innocence

The young boys on the island turn from polite and well-mannered boys to savage hunters on the island. During this transformation from good kids to cruel kids, they all lose their innocence of characters and morality which they all are filled with, at the start of the novel.  The naked boys with painted faces representing extreme savagery in the final portion of the novel are not the same boys who can be found in the early part of the novel. 

They now search, torture and hunt not only animals but human beings as well. In any case, Golding doesn’t depict this loss of innocence as something that is done to these boys on the island; rather, it results normally from their expanding receptiveness to the intrinsic insidiousness and viciousness that has consistently existed inside them. Golding infers that civilization can moderate however never clear out the inborn evil that exists inside every individual. 

The den in the jungle in chapter 3 wherein Simon sits in symbolizes this going away of innocence. From the outset, it is a position of common excellence and harmony, however, when Simon returns later in the novel, he finds the grisly sow’s head pierced upon a stake in the clearing. The bleeding offering to the brute has upset the heaven that existed previously which is an incredible image of natural human shrewdness upsetting the innocence of youth.

Lord of the Flies Characters Analysis

He is the hero of the story. He is one of the oldest boys who survive a plane crash to live on the island. He is elected as the leader of the group because of his skills.  He has a good sense of authority. He is described as a handsome boy with a good height.  He is a rational mental aptitude with a calm demeanor but he is unable to meet the intellectual level of Piggy. He tries to stop himself from savage life on the island as the other boys turn into savagery and violence but slowly and gradually he moves into the life of savage brutality. The interesting feature of his personality is that he remains civilized and is focused on the safe return of his group to his native land.

In the initial section of the novel, Ralph can’t comprehend why young boys get inclined to the impulses of brutality. Seeing the hunters reciting and moving is confusing to him. He dislikes all of these activities. As the novel advances, Ralph comes to comprehend that viciousness exists inside all the young men. Ralph stays committed not to let this viciousness overpower him, and just quickly does he consider joining Jack’s clan so as to spare himself. 

When Ralph chases a pig for the first time with Jack he encounters the elation and rush of bloodlust and savagery. At the point when he goes to Jack’s celebratory feast, he gets mad, dances and takes an active part in Simon’s killing along with the other boys. This firsthand information of evil that exists inside him, as inside every single individual, is deplorable for Ralph, and it drives him into depression for a period. But this information empowers him to cast down the Lord of the Flies toward the last part of the novel. Ralph’s story closes semi-disastrously, in spite of the fact that he is safeguarded and comes back to development when he sees the maritime official, he sobs with the weight of his new information about the human limit with regards to violence and savagery.

He is among the survivors of the plane crash. He makes a good bond with Ralph who becomes the leader of the group of boys. He is not able to do physical labor because he suffers from asthma but he is the only boy who has a higher level of intelligence and perception. The group of boys accepts him because he gives them the idea that they can ignite fire with his glasses. He is a true depiction of civilization and wants the boys to behave in a civilized manner. 

He helps Ralph to rescue the boys from the savagery of the island and to return to their respective homes. He is a very sensitive boy. His nickname Piggy makes a strong connection between him and the pigs on the island because the pigs are constantly hunted down by Jack and his team. This foreshadows the death of Piggy as well towards the end of the novel.

Piggy is the main kid who stresses over the principles of English human civilization; in particular what the adults will think when they locate the savage young men. Piggy has confidence in rules, practicality, and request, and as the island slips into ruthless savagery, Piggy’s position goes under risk of extreme savagery.

Piggy’s freedom and keenness keep him from being completely consumed by the gathering, so he isn’t as vulnerable to the crowd mindset that surpasses a significant number of different young men. As Ralph, Piggy can’t maintain a strategic distance from the allurements of brutality on the island. 

The next morning of the party, Ralph and Piggy both confess to taking some part in the assault and murder of Simon. While Piggy attempts to persuade himself that Simon’s death was a mishap, his investment proposes that his readiness to be acknowledged by the gathering drove him to sell out his own ethics and better judgment. 

The death of Piggy recommends that intellectualism is helpless against savagery. The death of Simon can be seen as a mishap or a heightening of crowd attitude, the death of Piggy is the most purposeful and unavoidable event on the island which marks the group of boys completely falling into the clutches of brutality and savagery.

Jack Merridew

He is called by the nickname of Jack. He is the leader of some boys who make choir. He is a dictator and authoritarian. He is brutal and cruel. He is also a sadist. His only work is to kill the pigs by hunting them on the island. He displays a political struggle to become the leader of the group of boys and when he finally announces himself the leader, he starts to show his mercilessness. He loves to punish and it is innate in his nature. He is a presentation of Anarchy. This is clearly shown when he tries to reject the system of order implemented by Ralph.

The egomaniacal and strongly committed Jack is the novel representation of the nature of brutality, savagery, and the craving for power.  From the earliest point of the novel, Jack wants power over every single other thing. He is irate when he loses the political race to Ralph and consistently pushes the limits of his subordinate job in the gathering. 

At an early stage, Jack holds the feeling of good respectability and conducts that society imparted in him because he is the pioneer of the choirboys. On the first occasion when he experiences a pig, he can’t slaughter it. However, Jack before long gets fixated on chasing and gives himself to the undertaking, painting his face like a savage and indulging himself in blood games of killing. The more savage Jack turns into, the more he can control the remainder of the gathering. 

In fact, aside from Ralph, Simon, and Piggy, the gathering to a great extent follows Jack in grasping brutality and viciousness. Jack’s adoration for power and viciousness are personally associated, as both empower him to feel amazing and magnified. Before the last section of the novel, Jack figures out how to utilize the young men’s dread of the brute to control their conduct.

Sam and Eric

Sam and Eric are identical twins. Towards the end of the novel, they remain with Piggy and Ralph. They help both the characters to start the fire so that they could be rescued by someone passing through the island. They are considered as one individual and therefore Golding presents them as Sam’n’eric.

He belongs to a group of hunters. He then becomes a guard at the castle rock when Jack makes his own tribe. He is equal in cruelty with Jack. He is very crude. He usually throws sand at other boys. His savagery turns out in a real essence when he joins the group of hunters. He also murders Piggy towards the end of the novel.

The hunter group when tries to kill the pig, would chant kill the pig and Maurice would become a pig- a feigned pig and the hunter group would pretend to slaughter Maurice. He is an intermediate sort of character who represents the mass that is mindless.

He is the smallest of the boys on the island. He usually murmurs his names and address so that he could give himself comfort that he would return to his home one day. He is a little kid and gets frightened very easily. Throughout the cross of the novel, his fear increases and older boys have to soothe him. He belongs to a domestic aspect of civilization.

Naval Officer

He comes towards the end of the novel. He meets Ralph when Ralph runs away from the boys of Jack to save himself. The novel officer tells him that he saw the smoke coming from the island so he came in to investigate the matter. It is the smoke of the fire which Jack ignites in order to see the location of Ralph. This fire takes the whole jungle. He makes the boys believe that they have come away from civilization and are primitive.

He is the most introspective of all the characters present in the novel. He loves nature which urges him to walk in the forest and enjoy seclusion. Simon stands for the symbolic representation of spirituality in the nature of humans. He is outcast like Piggy and the group of boys considers him an odd boy. 

He is the first boy in the group who sees the beast. But later, he recognizes that the beast is the dead body of the pilot of the plane. He then decides to tell it the boys but the boys in frenzy kill him. He is shown to be a figure of Christianity and his death is portrayed as martyrdom. His spirituality is also portrayed by the fact that his name means a person who has been heard by God. He stands a pivotal character in this Judeo-Christian allegory.

Lord of the Flies Analysis

The allegory of the title.

The novel serves as an allegory for the instinctive nature of humans and society. This novel presents the mythology of Judaism and Christianity to explain the political and sociological perspectives. The title has two implications and both the meanings have religious connotations. 

The first meaning refers to one of the lines of King Lear by Shakespeare, “As flies to wanton boys, are we to gods.” The meaning refers to the Beelzebub whose Greek name is Ba`alzevuv meaning “Lord of the Flies” and it is simply used for Satan. For Golding, the evil powers that constrain the stunning occasions on the island originate from inside the human mind and not from the external impulses. Golding accordingly utilizes a strict reference to delineate a Freudian idea of the Id that drags the humans for survival regardless of ethical and moral implications. For Freud, this Id is usually negative and it drags humans for its goals without considering the circumstances.

Lord of the Flies and Cold War

This novel was published in 1954 in the era of the Cold War.  The novel has a strong base in concerns in sociopolitical aspects of the era. This novel implies the Cold War struggle between liberal democratic countries and the rules system and Communist totalitarian governments. Ralph shows a liberal convention of democracy and before his taking up the total anarchic rule of leadership, Jack, portrays the military autocracy that remains in the communist systems. It is eminent that Golding sets the novel in what gives off an impression of reality of the human future. 

He represents the future which is in danger because of the atomic war threat. Golding’s novel talks about the general fear of the public relating to the race of atom bombs in the Cold War era because this race remained in vogue in the era in which this novel got published. Golding’s negative portrayal of Jack, who speaks to an enemy of majority rule political framework, and his recommendation of the truth of nuclear war, present the novel as a motion of help for the Western situation vulnerable War.

Significance of the Conch

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding utilizes a conch shell to symbolize a civilized and an enlightened society that controls itself through the system of democracy. At first, the young men utilize the conch to build up a community suggestive of their commonplace British order of society. Soon after the conch is found, Ralph utilizes it to bring different young boys on the island and assemble a conference. The shell’s capacity is obvious, and the young boys promptly grasp the possibility of a majority rules system. After investigating the island, Ralph announces the young men will lift their hands in gatherings, as at school, if any of them want to talk. When holding the conch every kid gets the option to communicate his considerations without interference. 

The young boys` underlying energy for the process of democracy procedure permeates the conch with incredible force as a method of correspondence, as the young men singularly concur that the conch symbolizes a commonplace and beneficial perfect.

The conch is an image of free discourse and a common procedure that every kid understands easily. However, the ideas themselves demonstrate progressively hard to stick to in practical speaking, and soon the conch’s capacity finishes as the young men oppose the requirements of the vote based procedure. Ralph is disappointed that the gatherings he utilizes the conch to collect don’t really achieve a lot. 

While the young boys consent to his arrangements for their general public on a fundamental level, the guidelines are difficult to authorize, since there are no ramifications for rebellion. Jack recommends a substitute type of administration and says that they needn’t bother with the conch any longer because they are going to talk. This presents the possibility of despotism or a civilization of humans where residents don’t share power similarly. In contrast to a democratic system which chips away at the premise of deliberate anticipation, authoritarian government, or autocracy, brutally rebuffs insubordination. Thus the conch in the novel portrays the restrictions of authorizing democracy just as the chance vote based system represents.

The Conceptualized meaning of “The Beast”

Golding utilizes the fear of boys from the beast to show that evil emerges from outer powers as opposed to within the human beings. This fearsome brute captures the imaginations of the boys as a snake-type creature.Later, the boys think about an animal that ascents from the ocean or the more indistinct element of an apparition. At the point when they detect the dead paratrooper who has arrived on the mountain, the boys get assured that they have seen the beast and its proofs are there on the mountain. Although a real beast roams around on the island but is not the beast the boys have in their imagination.

Golding outlines the darker side of human instinct and mentions that every individual possesses this dark person inside him. The young boys conceptualize the origin of all their evilness as because of a beast. But in reality, there is no beast on the island, rather it is the persona of the beast which these boys wear and becomes beasts to be brutal and violent.

Golding passes on the identity of the beast through the strict activities of Jack and his hunter group and through the dynamic idea which takes place in the vision of Simon. Simon’s disclosure about the beast happens upon him after he observes the death of the sow and then it’s beheading. Simon can understand the ruthlessness of the demonstration because he observes when this drama takes place. The flies capture the head of the sow to eat it and then duplicate themselves because they do not feel any sympathy towards the dead sow.  

This feeling of empathy is one of the main segregation lines between humans and animals.  Although Jack is a human being yet he lacks this feeling of sympathy for Piggy and other little boys on the island. Like Jack, his hunter group also loses this feeling of sympathy and they only look to kill the pigs and the boys who do not obey the orders of Jack.

At the point when Simon fantasizes that the staked head is addressing him, he believes that threat and danger are there on the island like other boys. The Lord of the Flies affirms that he is the part of every individual and he is close to all of them.

It is to note that the interpretation of the Greek word Beelzebub,  is the lord of Flies and it flies over the excrement and dead bodies.

Jack gives a depth to the identity of the beast when he reveals that the beast is indeed a hunter and he also conceptualizes that he himself is a beast as well because he threatens the boys and stands as a symbol of fear to the boys.  His desire for authority and power makes him do savage acts against his own group. The allegorical demon on his shoulder is his own animalistic instincts hoping to ace different animals.

Golding devolves the character of Jack with Simon’s illusory disclosure to illustrate the darker side of human beings which is the actual beast in the words of the boys of the group.

Some portion of Golding’s purpose is to exhibit that a particular country or state is not characterized by evil.  On the island, this beast in the novel is shown through dead pictures and things that show the power of lust. Preceding the war, a few of the boys, for example, the exploited Piggy, encounter the fierceness of others in the play area, and the irony is that the play area is specific for happiness and joyous activities. 

Inside every society which calls itself civilized, the beast appears in various ways: like military operational areas, like the conditions of madness which conveys negative repercussions. In Lord of the Flies Golding outlines that maliciousness and evil are there in everybody and all over the place.  Mankind’s work lies not in destroying it but to shield it from turning into the predominant power in our lives.

Ending of the Novel

Lord of the Flies closes with maritime officials showing up on the island. His initial perception of the boys is that they are engaged with pointless fooling around. At the point when he gets the details from Ralph what has occurred on the island, he is flabbergasted that children of Civilized British have gone to such a lower degree of humanity. Ralph and the young boys take his scolding and begin to weep that immediately become cries. They are crying over the loathsomeness of their experience and alleviation over coming back to human progress. As the young boys sob, the maritime official just watches out to the ocean to permit them to recover.

The maritime official does not understand the experience of the boys on the island. His not understanding what has occurred on the island reflects his own failure to perceive insidious inside himself and all humanity. At the point when he specifies playing around, the reader is snapped back to the real world. These are kids who ought to be guiltless and ought to mess around. Rather, they have become the truth in every last one of us – not unreasonably of guiltlessness, yet of evil.

Ironically the maritime official while seeming to portray Civilization and rationality of the society symbolizes evil which is inside the civilization as the boys have. He is a warrior who battles wars, which is positively human progress even from a pessimistic standpoint.

Lord of the Flies as an allegory for The Fall of Man from Eden

Lord of the Flies, metaphorically, portrays the subject of the contention between and good and evil. It is contention in which the evil gets its victory in the first phase and afterward, goodness comes to the surface and defeats the evil and sin. The boys in the novel symbolize bad or good characteristics. However, they are simultaneously fit for development. 

From the starting the bad and good are divided. Simon is loaded with human characteristics in addition to his education and spirituality. He brings great natural food for the littluns. He also gives credit to Piggy because he has been participating in every job and the making of fire is only possible because of Piggy. His instinct discloses to him that Ralph would endure towards the end. He is also very clear in his understanding that there is no brute outside and that evil exists in the brain of people.

The moaning of Ralph for losing innocence shows the subject of sin and appeasement. He accepts that he participated in the killing of Simon. He reveals to Piggy that the object which is killed on the mountain is much smaller than the beast so it could not be a beast. He also reveals that the dying object wanted to say something but it could not be heard because of the screams of the boys who were killing him. This shows that the voice of goodness is a distraught cry of frenzy, cruelty and superstition when Jesus is crucified. Later on, the individuals needed to appease their transgression inborn in them so as to be spared.

Simon can also be taken as a symbolic representation of Christ. He actually finds out that the beast is the dead body of the pilot. But he does not get the chance to utter this to the boys because he is brutally slaughtered by the boys who are in a frenzy. Critics are of the opinion that the death of Simon is a sacrifice and he is reference to Jesus.

Notwithstanding to the sacrifice of Simon the appeasement of Ralph for his transgression, there are other elements of Christianity in the novel as well. The most significant is the picture of Eden and its Garden and the dream of the Lord of the Flies. The island has all the highlights of the Eden. Golding in his novel suggests that when a person is encompassed by different sorts of solace and extravagance and without government and parental standards, it will prompt obliteration and defilement. Thus the young boys on the island have started to thwart everything and they even murder their companions.  

They also kill various pigs and put the head of the pig on a stick. The head of the sow on the stick is called the Lord of the Flies and it is a reference to Beelzebub who is also known as Lord of the Flies.

This head of the pig is a sacrifice to the beast by Jack. The metaphorical discussion between Simon, Jesus, and the Lord of the Flies is a reference to conflict of evil and good. The Lord of the Flies lures Simon requesting that he joins the group of Jack. At the point when Simon isn’t enticed, the Lord of the Flies scares him revealing to him that he would be slaughtered by Jack. 

For the Christian allurement and undermining are the two primary ways utilized by powers of evil to abscond goodness towards them. Satan enticed Adam and Eve to bring about the calamity for mankind. The scene that portrays Simon’s encounter with the Lord of the Flies resembles the scene in the Bible where Christ meets the fallen angel in the desert. The righteous people can’t be cheated rather they are killed by the abhorrent powers.

The religious element crafted by Golding, his indulgence of the Biblical subject of the breakdown of mankind, is observed by every critic and research. It can’t be dismissed that Golding’s major focus is the fall of man, and simultaneously, he communicates his anxiety for the conceivable way out of this fallen condition through the improvement of human emotions. That is the reason he does not care to be portrayed as a person who is a pessimist rather he wants to be known as a realist.

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Lord of the Flies Character Analysis

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• CHAPTER SUMMARY

Simon’s name could be associated with the nursery rhyme character Simple Simon, and Simon Peter, a disciple and close friend of Jesus in the Bible. Simon amazes Ralph and Piggy by stating there might be a Beast on the island but he says “...maybe it’s only us.” It is Simon who speaks to the Lord of the Flies, a symbolic way of expressing the struggle between order and chaos. He is the character who most clearly sees “mankind’s essential illness” and that they won’t succeed on the island. The others think he’s cracked and his fate is to be killed in a mad frenzy involving all the boys, who think he is the Beast.

Essays on Simon

Lord of the flies. How does Golding make Simon such a significant figure in the novel?

What is the importance of Simon in 'Lord of the Flies'

Ralph is a natural leader. He knows Piggy is a better thinker, but would not be accepted as a leader. As the story progresses Ralph’s good sense brings him more and more openly into conflict with Jack and the discipline Ralph represents becomes less and less attractive compared to the thrills Jack offers. Ralph yearns for home and civilisation but as time passes finds them harder to grasp in his mind. When Piggy is murdered he knows he’ll be next and only the arrival of the naval officer saves him from being hunted to death. As Simon predicted, he survived, but “he wept for the end of innocence.”

Essays About Ralph

In the novel Lord of the Flies, Golding uses Ralph to represent democracy and friendship.

How has the relationship between Ralph and Jack changed?

Jack is the leader of the choir. He assumes he’ll be leader on the island but Ralph is elected instead. This is the start of their aggressive rivalry. Jack becomes chief of the hunters who form a tribe of their own. As order and democracy begin to collapse, it is Jack who creates and exploits the breakdown. He lets the fire go out, proclaims “Bollocks to the rules!” and uses the fear of the Beast to control his followers, leaving offerings like the pig’s head. It is Jack who most obviously represents the return to primitive ways, even losing his name, being known just as “Chief”. Hunting is more exciting than meetings and fear is stronger than both. Jack becomes a total ruler whose word is a matter of life and death.

Essays on Jack

Compare and Contrast the characters of Ralph and Jack in the first and last chapters in Lord of the Flies

Lord of The Flies - Is Jack Evil?

Even on the island Piggy cannot escape his nickname and the ridicule it brings. His weakness is similarly exploited when his glasses are used to start a fire. He has all the good ideas – the conch, the fire, the need for rescue. He puts his trust in science and the rational but he is mocked for his asthma and his lower class origins. Once Ralph loses authority, Piggy is doomed. In the climactic scene of the novel as Piggy pleads for reason, Roger levers the rock which kills Piggy and simultaneously smashes the conch. This marks the triumph of totalitarianism (a concept where society is rigidly controlled by its leaders), as clearly as Hitler or Stalin achieving power.

Piggy Essays

What is the significance of Piggy in the novel The Lord of the Flies?

Piggy is clearly a clever boy, but he is also a victim too. How is he important in the novel?

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Critical Essays Major Themes

Problem of Evil

Lord of the Flies was driven by " Golding 's consideration of human evil, a complex topic that involves an examination not only of human nature but also the causes, effects, and manifestations of evil. It demands also a close observation of the methods or ideologies humankind uses to combat evil and whether those methods are effective. Golding addresses these topics through the intricate allegory of his novel.

When Lord of the Flies was first released in 1954, Golding described the novel's theme in a publicity questionnaire as "an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature." In his 1982 essay A Moving Target , he stated simply "The theme of Lord of the Flies is grief, sheer grief, grief, grief." The novel ends of course with Ralph grieving the indelible mark of evil in each person's heart, an evil he scarcely suspected existed before witnessing its effects on his friends and supporters. The former schoolboys sought unthinkingly to dominate others who were not of their group. They discovered within themselves the urge to inflict pain and enjoyed the accompanying rush of power. When confronted with a choice between reason's civilizing influence and animality's self-indulgent savagery, they choose to abandon the values of the civilization that Ralph represents.

This same choice is made constantly all over the world, all throughout history — the source of the grief Golding sought to convey. He places supposedly innocent schoolboys in the protected environment of an uninhabited tropical island to illustrate the point that savagery is not confined to certain people in particular environments but exists in everyone as a stain on, if not a dominator of, the nobler side of human nature. Golding depicts the smallest boys acting out, in innocence, the same cruel desire for mastery shown by Jack and his tribe while hunting pigs and, later, Ralph. The adults waging the war that marooned the boys on the island are also enacting the desire to rule others.

Ironically, by giving rein to their urge to dominate, the boys find themselves in the grip of a force they can neither understand nor acknowledge. The Lord of the Flies tells Simon "Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!" and then laughs at the boys' efforts to externalize their savagery in the form of an animal or other fearsome creature. Simon has the revelation that evil isn't simply a component of human nature, but an active element that seeks expression.

Outlets for Violence

Most societies set up mechanisms to channel aggressive impulses into productive enterprises or projects. On the island, Jack's hunters are successful in providing meat for the group because they tap into their innate ability to commit violence. To the extent that this violence is a reasoned response to the group's needs (for example, to feed for the population), it produces positive effects and outcomes. However, when the violence becomes the motivator and the desired outcome lacks social or moral value beyond itself, as it does with the hunters, at that point the violence becomes evil, savage, and diabolical.

Violence continues to exist in modern society and is institutionalized in the military and politics. Golding develops this theme by having his characters establish a democratic assembly, which is greatly affected by the verbal violence of Jack's power-plays, and an army of hunters, which ultimately forms a small military dictatorship. The boys' assemblies are likened to both ends of the social or civil spectrum, from pre-verbal tribe gatherings to modern governmental institutions, indicating that while the forum for politics has changed over the millennia, the dynamic remains the same.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Lord of The Flies — Conch and The Pig’s Head Analysis

Conch and The Pig's Head Analysis

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Published: Mar 20, 2024

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The pig's head (lord of the flies).

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