Lord of the Flies

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Lord of the Flies

        In this essay I aim to analyse the following aspects of "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding: character relationships, mainly Jack and Ralph's relationship, the island and its part in the novel, theme and the way Golding chooses to present the island.

The opening chapter of "Lord of the Flies" is important because it sets the scene and atmosphere on the island in the novel. William Golding, the author of "Lord of the Flies", is very descriptive and writes about the island in much detail, with descriptions such as, "The shore was fledged with palm trees. These stood or leaned or reclined against the light, and their green feathers were a hundred feet in the air." This is a description of the shore in the first chapter. From this alone an image of the island's shore can be formed, setting the scene of the novel. The situation the boys are in is also mentioned in the first chapter, through character dialogue, how the boys are alone on the island with no adults and no form of civilisation at the start, and how that there was a plane crash and they are the only survivors of the crash.

The plane had presumably been shot down and crashed on an island in the Pacific. It is hinted that the rest of the world is at war, and that most of it has been destroyed by nuclear attacks—possibly explaining that the children were being evacuated, "didn't you hear what the pilot said? About the atom bomb? They're all dead." This proves there was some sort of nuclear attack, so presumably there was a war going on.

In the first chapter, we meet all of the main characters in the novel, Ralph, Piggy, Jack, Simon, Roger and Samneric. We also learn quite a bit about each character through their dialogue and through Golding's descriptions.

The first character to be introduced into the novel is Ralph, "The boy with the fair hair." He isn't actually named until he speaks to Piggy, the second character introduced. Both characters are described in different ways to each other. Ralph is described as "the boy with fair hair" and "the fair boy" when Piggy is described much more harshly, "He was shorter than the fair boy and very fat," and also "the fat boy". Before the names of these two are mentioned they are known as "the fair boy, being Ralph and "the fat boy", referring to Piggy.

Golding adds a description of Ralph into the text to indicate that that he isn't really bad, just a little rude in the beginning, "but there was a mildness about his mouth and eyes that proclaimed no devil, he had, "bright excited eyes". This seems as if Golding is dropping a hint that Ralph is a good person, and won't be doing wrong later on in the novel.

The more these two speak, the more we find out about them and their backgrounds. We find out Piggy lives with his auntie and that his father his dead but we don't find out what happened to his mother as he abruptly ends his sentence, "My dad's dead" he said quickly, "and my mum…", and then he says "I used to live with my auntie." This shows he lives with his auntie at home, and not his mother and father. Ralph, however, mentions his father, "I could swim when I was 5. Daddy taught me. He's a commander in the Navy. When he gets leave he'll come rescue us." As his father is in the Navy, and from the way Ralph speaks, it is presumable that Ralph is middle class, as he talks in Standard English and only middle class and upper class people were allowed to work in the Navy at that time. From Piggy's ungrammatical speech it is more likely that he is lower class because around that time, around World War 2, the middle and upper classes were learnt to speak grammatically and in Standard English.

Ralph is quite bold and confident, compared to Piggy. "It's hot!" "What did you expect?" "I didn't expect nothing. My auntie…" "Sucks to your auntie!" This shows that Ralph thinks he is better than Piggy otherwise he wouldn't be as disrespectful as he was, which is arrogance as well as cockiness.

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Piggy seems to be a well educated boy, with his own opinions and ideas, but seems to be very shy and also quite insecure, "the fat boy hung steadily at his shoulder." This shows he's quite needy and dependant on others. Throughout the play he has good ideas but needs Ralph to reinforce them because Piggy has no power or control over the others, but Ralph does when he is elected as chief. Piggy would make and excellent leader, as he is very knowledgeable and thinks methodically, but he is weak and not very confident as a person. He gives ...

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