Later in the story with the jealousy of wanting to be chief Jack decides he no longer wants to be part of Ralph's tribe. He leaves, inviting the other boys to follow him. Everyone but the twins and Piggy abandon Ralph to attend Jack's feast of roast pig. Ralph soon has given in and joined Jack's feast, Piggy and the twins follow. They share roast pig and find that the hunters are now treating Jack as a god, serving him and obeying his commands. Ralph and Jack argue over who should be leader. Jack claims the right because he has killed the pig, but Ralph still has the conch. Instead of fighting, Jack suggests they do their pig-killing dance. They begin to chant, "Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!" as the storm overhead gathers force. Piggy and Ralph join the circle to dance with the others. Lightning cuts the sky apart. When Simon appears, the boys have ceased to be boys playing a game and have become a dangerous mob. They attack Simon, calling him the beast and killing him with their hunting sticks. Only then does the storm finally break and the rain begin to fall. During the night the tide carries the dead boy out to sea. The next night Jack and two hunters attack Ralph and Piggy and steal Piggy's glasses. Nearly blind without his glasses, Piggy decides that he and Ralph can do nothing but ask Jack to give them back. Sam and Eric, the only others who have remained with Ralph, go along. They take the conch with them. The fight that has been building between Jack and Ralph over who should be leader finally breaks out. The hunters drag the twins off. A giant boulder is hurled over a ledge, demolishing the conch and striking Piggy - flung over the cliff, Piggy dies when he hits the rocks below. Jack declares himself chief. The next day Jack and the hunters plan to cover the island looking for Ralph. He will be stalked in much the same way that Jack has gone after the pigs. Ralph hides and runs. These scene described here can be referred back to the theme of the individual (Ralph) v the group (Jack etc). A fire is started, that quickly spreads over the island to smoke Ralph out. At the very last moment, when all hope for Ralph seems lost, Ralph stumbles onto the beach and falls at the feet of a man in uniform, the captain of a ship out at sea who seen the smoke from the fire started by Jack and his hunters, Ralph is saved.
‘The Lord Of The Flies’ by William Golding takes place on an island during a nuclear war. The island in Lord of the Flies is never actually pointed out in the real world. The tropical location has a beach, where Ralph and Piggy emerge to find the conch. Further inland is the dense jungle, towards the centre of which is Simon's mat of creepers. This is also where pigs are hunted and the Lord of the Flies is eventually found.
Lord Of The Flies contains many characters, all of which are young boys. The most important characters in the novel are Ralph, Jack, Piggy, Simon, Roger, Sam and Eric. Ralph is the most charismatic of the group. He is initially chosen as leader due to his many positive qualities. He maintains a conflict with Jack throughout the entire novel, attempting to keep order whereas Jack isn't concerned with it. Jack from the very beginning, he seems to harbour emotions of anger and savagery. At first, he is the leader of his choir group, who become hunters as the book progresses. Finally, his savage personality and ability to tell people what they want to hear allows him to overpower Ralph’s popularity as chief. Piggy is an overweight boy who wears glasses and represents order and democracy in the book. He has asthma. He tries very hard to cling to civilization, and tries his best to keep peace. While probably the smartest boy on the island, he lacks any social skills whatsoever, and has trouble communicating or fitting in with the others. His glasses are a very important part of the book, as they are used over and over to start fires. Roger represents evil and wrongness, more so even than Jack. He has no mercy, and is the first one to intentionally kill another boy on the island when he smashed Piggy with a boulder. He gets great pleasure from torturing a pig during a hunt on the island. Roger is one of Jack's most loyal helpers, and gladly carries out his orders. Sam and Eric are two twins who always do everything together. Without each other, they are incapable of very much. While seemingly loyal to Ralph, they eventually give in to Jack's threats and join his tribe. While Ralph hoped otherwise, the twins in the end disclose Ralph's hiding spot to Jack. One thing that I noticed about each character is that they all represent aspects of human nature.
Golding uses a lot of symbolism in The Lord of the Flies. A symbol Golding uses throughout the book is the conch. It represents authority and order. The person holding the conch had the power, and it created order and rules since when it was called, everyone had to listen. Many of the boys wore a uniform e.g. Jack and the rest of the choirboys wore long black cloaks. This symbolises the age of the boys-still in their school years. This refers back to the theme of civilisation. The painting of their faces symbolises savagery and the rejection of society. an example of this would be when Jack and the rest of his hunters painted their faces, to represent masks, before they went on a hunt, on doing so they were able to hide their faces and let themselves out of control by managing to torture a pig, the painful way and not being normal hunters by just killing the bore. Another symbol Golding uses throughout the book is the conch. It represents authority and order. Its’ purpose was to gather the attention of the rest of the boys when a meeting was to be called-and the person holding the conch had the power, it created order and rules. In the end when it was destroyed the authority kept by the boys was lost.
The scene where the first fire caused outrage on the island as it burned down nearly all the island is very effective as imagery and personification are both used to describe the fire. The fire is personified as a creature on outrage-“One patch touched a tree trunk and scrambled up like a bright squirrel…” “The squirrel leapt on the wings of the wind and clung to another standing tree, eating downwards.” The squirrel here represents the fire, going out of control. At this scene in the book I noticed that the fire and Jack are described alike-going out of control. This scene refers back to the theme of authority v chaos, because if authority was kept there would not have been any chaos with the fire, which led to the death of some of the boys.
I found there to several cases of irony in this book. One example is when Ralph cries for a sign from the ‘grown up’ world to come to the island, and a sign did come in the from of a dead pilot-which at first seemed to be the beast to the boys, but I knew that it wasn’t. This is also a part of the symbolism technique created by Golding in the novel. It symbolises death and war and that the boys are small mirrors of the adult world. Piggy’s glasses are also represented symbolism-the symbol of life, as without them the group would not be able to survive as the glasses were used to light fires and Piggy is blind without them and so is the group. Along with Piggy, with him a level of peace was kept within the group but without him there is no peace as I found out at the end when Piggy was killed. The Lord Of The Flies, whom we meet in one of Simon’s dreams represents the symbol that the life of the group/conch is coming to an end. Simon is the only character to see The Lord Of The Flies, and realizes that the beast is actually within himself. Throughout the story I noticed that there were keynotes set for each character- Ralph representing democracy and order along with the conch, Piggy and his glasses representing Clear-sightedness and intelligence. Jack represents savagery and disorder, Simon-goodness leaving Roger to represent evil, Satan. I would say that the Lord Of The Flies represents the devil, great danger and/or evil.
There are many other aspects in the story that may be considered symbolism, but the several above are probably the most significant to others and me.
The ending to the book for me looked worrying, and unpromising for Ralph as he is about to be slaughtered like a pig by Jack and the rest of the hunters but luckily the captain of a war ship rescues him.
Golding makes his novel come alive with a significant use of symbolism, physiological development, and general truths.
