Piggy’s glasses are similar in their symbolisation to the conch. They denote reasoning and logic among the boys. Piggy defends his glasses even more than the conch because they help him see clearly both literally and metaphorically. When the regime of savagery starts to take over, one of the lenses in Piggy’s glasses is smashed symbolising the abolition of clear sight and the boys almost losing their ability to light the fire and consequently their only chance of rescue.
One of the biggest turning points in the novel is the arrival of Jack and his choir. It can be seen from the moment the choir is sighted at a distance along the perfect beach that they are going to cause upheaval by the way Golding portrays them – ‘Within the diamond haze of the beach something dark was fumbling along…the creature stepped from the mirage on to clear sand…The creature was a party of boys…Their bodies, from throat to ankle, were hidden by black cloaks.’- an absolute implication of what is yet to come.
Golding goes on to describe Jack as ‘the boy who controlled them’: this is an indication of Jack’s commanding and dictating character. The boys’ characters are all reflected in their physical appearances; Jack is a good example of this. He is described by Golding as ‘tall, thin, and bony; and his red hair was beneath the black cap’ (could, here, the red hair be a connotation of anger and the black cap be symbolic, like the rest of the boys uniforms, of the civilised word beyond the island?) Golding says later of Jack, ‘ His face was ugly without silliness. Out of his face stared two blue eyes, frustrated now, and turning, or ready to turn, to anger.’ This is a hint of Jack’s unstable temper even at this early stage when he has scarcely been introduced into the novel.
The other prominent characters, mainly the ‘big’uns’, also follow this rule of the character being reflected in their physical appearances. Piggy is described as being ‘short and very fat’ with ‘ass-mar’; thus telling the reader he is not going to be a leader and inflicting upon his character the stereotypes of fat people, laziness, greediness, etcetera. His school nickname, by which the boys refer to him – Piggy – is also an indicator of many aspects of his personality: he was obviously bullied at school and therefore clings to adults for support and devoid of them he is lost, with no protection from his problems. His name also has a connection with the hunters who have an uncontrollable urge to ‘kill the pig’: an indirect metaphor to suggest the savage pack of hunters is also killing part of Piggy and therefore what he symbolises – democracy, logic and practicality.
Ralph, who, initially, is known as the fair boy, is a great friend and support to Piggy, almost a stepping-stone between the extreme savagery of Jack and his followers and the civilisation and honesty of Piggy. Ralph is the only character on the island close to Jack in physical stature; ‘very tall and thin…could make a boxer one day’. This is apposite as these characters embody two contra philosophies of existence in their microcosm of ‘civilised’ and ‘democratic’ society, which they left behind. Golding uses Ralph to embody the perfect human at the beginning of the novel; however, later Ralph grows distant from Piggy, the good side, and becomes closer to Jack, the anarchical side of human temperament. Ralph has to try to compromise between Jack’s frivolous, ‘for the moment’ philosophy and Piggy’s altogether more civilised, ordered and logical philosophy.
Sam and Eric, although they are less prominent characters than Piggy, Ralph, Simon and Jack, are still imbued with some allegorical meaning. They represent the desire, or even need, humans have for moral support from other people, hence the amalgamation of their names to Samneric. The character of Ralph shows this well in his refusal to join the hunters throughout the novel. In doing this however he finds himself somewhat lost without moral support, and is left without any of the others as they have all joined Jack and his tribe or been killed by them. Ralph thinks to himself, after the death of Piggy, ‘What was the sensible thing to do? There was no Piggy to talk sense. There was no assembly for debate nor dignity of the conch.’ As well as this, Samneric represent the weakness of human nature, the best paradigm of this is their betraying Ralph by joining Jack’s sinister side (after being threatened.)
Simon is thought of by the other boys as being ‘different’; a factor in this could be that he is neither a ‘little’un’, nor a ‘big’un’ not belonging entirely to either group. His being, as Golding puts it, an ‘in-between’ boy could be considered a strength. It gives him the power to look at situations and problems from two different perspectives. He has the innocence of the ‘little'uns’ yet the knowledge of the ‘big'uns’. Simon is similar to Piggy in many ways, he thinks of the world in roughly the same way as Piggy does, he has Piggy’s sensitive perception but in a stronger sense and unlike many of the boys on the island Simon has a moral conscience. Simon is unique in numerous ways, one of which is the fact that he can actually hear the voice of the beast, which ultimately gets him killed. Simon is the only one of the boys who realises that the beast is not something one can kill because it is in the minds of all the boys and is not a living, breathing creature. A further point is that Simon is the only one to comprehend the connection between the dead parachutist and the Lord of the Flies. He comprehends the fact that the dead airman symbolises the death of reason, and now the Lord of the Flies is free to rule over the boys and let anarchy rule. Simon sacrifices his own life to try to tell the other boys what he knows about the beast. He could therefore be seen as a Christ figure.
Entirely at the other end of the spectrum from Simon is Roger. He is the most sadistic character on the island and will kill in cold blood, he also plays a large role in the society the novel symbolises, in that his character stands for man’s natural instinct to cause harm to others and shows how not everyone in society is able to overcome that instinct. Roger is one of the first boys after Jack to start wearing face paint. The paint is yet another symbolic aspect of the novel. It represents the cover-up the beast uses to infiltrate the souls of the boys.
The point at which the boys’ society plummets from being semi-civilised to being over run by savagery is when the dead parachutist arrives. His arrival is symbolic of the absolute end of any influence from the adult world. His parachute suspends the airman, and blows him around in the wind. This is illustrating prolonged death and showing the reader that the society’s descent into savagery in not immediate but prolonged.
The descent into savagery puts all the boys under pressure and carves out the differences between them that were present before but did not cause any great problem other than some petty school boy name calling. The characters, such as Piggy, who are less confident and have a lower social status than the other boys are bullied to a greater extent. This illustrates the problem of class discrimination in society as a whole. A further point that singles Piggy and Simon out from the rest of the boys is the fact that they defend their principles. This is symbolic of the fact that, more often than not, standing up for one’s principles is a hindrance in life.
The novel is full of metaphorical references to various aspects of society, and the characters are over-laden with allegorical meaning and symbolism; thus it sinks in a quagmire of metaphors. However, the book is an excellent representation of society as it was when Golding put pen to paper, as it is now, and as, Golding believes, it will always be. Unfortunately, anarchy defeats order. Golding thought that no matter how democratic, reasonable or selfless a government may be it will ultimately have to give in to the anarchical demands of its public because, according to Golding, government is not an effective way of uniting people. Golding summed this up in his last comment in his press release on the book by asking the question, ‘while the ship saves the boys from killing each other, who will save the ship from killing other ships or being killed?’
