‘Piggy! Piggy!’, ‘Ralph, please’; Piggy, here is almost begging Ralph to stop, he hates getting mocked and it upsets him a lot, he wants to fit in but also realises the need for order and these views cause the other boys to dislike him as he seems to them as an adult in their own ‘world’. They don’t want to live with rules; they want to have fun; but Piggy, as the most intelligent of the three characters, views the rules as tools of survival. He views all of the boy’s behaviour on the island in terms of whether it will contribute to their rescue. This in a way makes him a bit of a hero. He knows the reaction he will get from the boys when he tries to put in some sort of order, but still he tries; he really just wants to help. Piggy remains an outsider to the boys throughout the story, he is set up as a somebody trying his hardest to fit in but never actually fitting in. This is mainly due to his concerns and ideas.
‘How can you expect to be rescued when you don’t put first things first and act proper?’ When Piggy suggests that the boys build a sundial they mock him. This is quite hurtful to Piggy as he doesn’t seem to understand why they hate him so much and he still tries to win their approval by saying to them what he thinks are good and bad ideas. In this sense Piggy is a hero, no matter what they say or do he always tries, for example, when he tries to get his glasses back. This is out of character for Piggy but he tries. Regrettably what Piggy does, it seems self centred, he says and suggests things in order to impress and gain approval from the other boys, the main thing of all he says seems to be to show his intelligence to the boys, but instead, rather than impressing this serves as an irritation to the boys.
Piggy stands apart form the other boys, for he exists altogether as a member of the group. His hair does not even seem to grow; therefore he keeps the appearance of a normal English schoolboy, as the others grow they get worse behaved. Piggy isn’t a very childlike character in this story, he is the only character who completely forgets the idea of a beast on the island, and even reassures Ralph on this point. It is Piggy who realises that the boys fear is the only danger that they face, and even this fear proves no actual threat to them. However, the outcast Piggy once again is ignored in favour of stories of beasts and ghosts’ although he is consistently correct in his thought, Piggy is still consistently ignored. He raises the important question whether the boys will act like humans, savages or animals.
However, in my opinion Piggy in some ways acts like a hero, such as when he asks for his glasses back, but this was selfish, although a brave act. Piggy was an important character in this story, without Piggy, Ralph wouldn’t have ever discovered the conch and many other good ideas.
