Young Writers Society

William Golding wrote the novel,"Lord of the Flies," to show how boys would react without rules; he used many allegorical items to show this as his main theme. for example he used the young boys that were trapped on s island, the conch found by Piggy and Ralph in the beginning of the adventure, and even the island itself played a huge role as a symbolic artifact in Golding's story, and with all of this he created the notorious,"Lord of the Flies."

Firstly, the boys are a symbol of adolescence and ignorance. Boys are mainly needed to have been told what to do. Being so young they are ignorant to most morals and principles they should be introduced to through the many stages of maturity. The "Savages," or unlearned cubs of nature turn to primal instinct, and to them that is doing what they feel like, and retaliating on anything that goes against that. Unfortunately this is one of
the reasons why Simon and Piggy were slaughtered.

Second, the conch, discovered by logic and wielded by a leader was the only thing that overlooked the immaturity on the island. It was the symbol for organization and leadership: it kept most of the boys civilized for the time being, and after it was crushed, chaos triumphed, as the hunt for the leader began. And, the only thing that kept our leader alive was the end of ",The island."

The most important analogy was the island. The island represented everything from hope to despair; the island was the trap that encumbered our leaders, savages, followers, and learned minds of advice. An island to most symbolizes beauty or leisure, and for the boys it was the same, until the island drew the beast from the children. The island then became a
prison, and to some, the beginning of a new civilization; freedom, to claustrophobia was derived from each boys' soul until they turned on each other. The island became a graveyard, a crime scene, and hell.

Writing this must have been like writing a manuscript for a freed soul with no possible consequences for there actions, and it was magnificently put together by William Golding. Showing how boys react without rules in such depth could only be done by using theses fantastically strategic symbols and allegory's.

Er... hate to break it to you, but that format is pretty unreadable. You might want to edit it for those on the web instead of just your teacher.

What about the pigs as a symbol? *flails*

I found that the pigs didnt have a significant enough role in the allegorical feild for it to be in my book report, sorry for the format my parragraph indentations didnt show much, im a newbie still getting the hang of things=) ty for the critisism

Um, but the symbol of the pig is huge! The central motif in The Lord of the Flies is the pig's head on the stick, stuck in the ground like a totem in the making. Golding sees this head of rotting flesh covered in gorging flies as Beelzebub, the devil, whose nickname just happens to be "LORD OF THE FLIES".

Then there is Piggy, one of the central characters to the novel, who is Ralph's sidekick. His glasses symbolize knowledge and government, etc. I always thought it darkly humorous that he had Piggy wear the glasses. As if the decay of the pig's head (the totem) parrallel the boys fall, and Piggy's violent death. Also the glasses were a symbol of insight, Piggy gave advice, and helped make the signal fire before they were broken.

Thoreau once said: "Law never made men a whit more just." Meaning that laws don't make men just and right; they keep people in fear. For example, I am not going to steal her water bottle, not because I am a just person, but because I fear the consequences of my actions; those far outweigh the prize. I think what you just missed was Golding's theme. It wasn't just about boys and them being lemmings, needing to be told what to do, it was about humans in general. That without civilization humans will descend into predatory animals ruled by power, supersitition, and the need to survive at all costs. When the symbols of civilization are destroyed i.e. the conch and Piggy's glasses, it signals the downfall as the boys return to the wild. As Thomas Hobbes put it, "No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

So, more about PIG SYMBOLISM! The pigs were the first animals that were killed on the island by the boys. Remember, the hunt for the pig, and the subsequent slaughter, them degrading into savages? Yeah, that. The killed a baby pig, first kill, the first descent in madness. I mean the moon arose in the sky, and they all danced around the fire together and sang songs about killing, what, PIGS.

With LOTFs Golding is basically saying that everyone has an inner nature that is poorly covered by society. If the society is taken away, then chaos and lawlessness erupt. Also the beast is human. In the beginning of the book, a littlun told the others that he saw a beast in the jungle, which started the fear. But it turns out that the beast is clearly human, a parachutist infact, which symbolizes that what the boys were scared of were not they should be scared of is not some evil creature but themselves.

the pigs head on a stick only symbolized a demon, for Simon was the only character that talked to the lord of the flies and simon was epileptic, being epileptic at this time period didnt only mean u had siezures it meant you were closer to god and being in a catholic school and epileptic made it clear in the book that simon was suppose to be understood as a jesus figure. so by talking to the lord of the flies was like talking to a demon, because the demon says that the beast has taken over and there is nothing he can do about it. Simon then trying to deliver the demons undirect message was killed by the beast...

the beast being the kids in a rage for bloodlust forced on by the island, bringing it all back to the island... the island is the item that created the beast and the beast created the lord of the flies

I don't know... I sort of think that the pig head stands for mother nature. For one, this is the head pig mama of the island (hahah, that sounds wrong) and she was the mother of the darling things, the only living creatures around that were quite inhuman and rather like monsters. Much like Greek mythology, Gaia created all these monsters, but loved them equally. So when the pigs were killed off, this in effect made Gaia mad. In Greek mythology, what typically happened when Gaia was mad was she did some predictions to some select humans and made the whole civilization come into a frenzy... sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way. Anyway, she manifests this pig, but instead of dying, she turns more powerful as an oracle and gets Ralph to see the world in a pretty scary light.

Haha. We love deciphering symbolism!

Actually I have very good reason to think the way I do. I did my book review based off of Golding's own review, that I listened to in english. So im not saying anyone is wrong to think the way they do this is a very controversal book, but most of my theorism is backed up by the author

keep writing and =) happy reading (-=

Hehehe... but symbolism can vary from person to person! Besides, I'm still picking up some of the symbolism for my story. Not everything is intentional. He probably didn't intend to put some things in he did. So it's fun to pick out!

Note, I wasn't saying that any of your analysis was wrong, just that pigs were an important motif in Lord of the Flies.

Hmmm, yeah. My two cents is as long as you can back up what you say with evidence, it's all good.

=) sorry caligul, didnt mean that you were wrong =) sorry if I came off that way. =(

I loved the movie and the book spent most of my time this year analysing it and using it as a supplementary text to the novel Huckleberry Finn. But I'll limit what I say to this: it was awesome.