Irony In 'Lord of the Flies'

After all, we’re not savages."(Golding 32)However, in the following chapters Jack is the leader of the tribe and encourages the boys to forget civilization and act upon their primitive instincts. They ignore the laws that they all have agreed to follow while on the island and commit heinous crimes against humanity, such as torture against both humans and animals, and murder. They no longer act like English schoolboys who are the best at everything, but like savages. Relatively early on in the novel Ralph comes to terms with his situation. He realizes that much of one’s life is spent just keeping out of danger and staying alive. After understanding the complex, yet realistic, view of life he remembers his first impression of the island and how he thought they would have fun on the island, like living in one of his books. Now he realized what life on the island would really be like. There is irony in Piggy’ s name. The boys hunt, kill and eat pigs on the island. Not only do they kill the pigs, they enjoy it tremendously. Piggy’ s name suggests that he will be a victim of the beast. Not the beast the boys on the island fear, but the beast within each of them. The author is saying through Piggy that because they kill and eat the pigs they become the beast. Ralph prays to the adult world to send them something grownup, a sign or something. His prayer is answered by a dead parachuter, a casualty of war from the fighting going on in civilized society. The dead man is powerless to help the boys. He actually causes more problems. He is mistaken for the beast and causes more fear in the boys and drives them closer to becoming savages. Piggy often says that they act like "a crowd of kids". He says to Ralph that "grownups know things. They ain’t afraid of the dark. They’d meet and have tea and discuss. Then things ‘ud be all right". This is perhaps the best example of irony in the novel. It is because the adults could not get together and discuss their problems that they were stranded on the island in the first place. If they had been able to meet and discuss they boys would have never fleed their school and would have never been shot down, therefore avoiding ever being on the island. William Golding used irony in Lord of the Flies as a way to make the readers step back and think about what he wrote. If he had not wrote the story with ironic twists and hidden meanings many people would miss the meaning of the book. The readers would be able to finish the novel without thinking about the issues that you are meant to ponder after reading Lord of the Flies, such as evil, spirituality, society, man versus the unknown, man versus himself and many other important themes in the book.