What is Golding telling us about society in 'Lord of the flies'?

Piggy is Ralph's helper or assistant, he gives Ralph advice on how he should explain to everyone, how to act and behave. He is a very intelligent character. He understands situations and things that go on more than the others because he is a relaxed character who gives himself time to think. Although he is smart, he is still bullied and mocked by the other boys. In a way he is comic relief to the novel.

In contrast with Piggy and Ralph is a character called Jack. He is a boy with a vicious mind who thinks very primitively. At the beginning, he gives Ralph advice that if someone doesn't obey the rules, they should get punished, ironically towards the end he is the one who is breaking all the rules and acting savagely.

Golding shows civility and organisation in many forms at the beginning of the novel 'Seems to me we ought to have a chief to decide things'. This shows one of the ways in which they become organised. Some other rules they make are, that if you want to talk you have to have the conch, the fire must be lit all the time for a chance at being rescued, there must be people keeping watch and if the conch is blown then an assembly has been called. In the assemblies the boys talk amongst themselves about there experiences. They also talk about how they should sort things out.

The conch is a representation of civility. Ralph uses it to control the group of boys and keep order. When Jack and the other boys turned savage and made a tribe, Ralph and Piggy were weak and vulnerable. The conch is what gave them the upper hand because it showed Jack that they still had control. When the conch breaks, it shows that all civility has come to an end. 'The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded'. Piggy dies at the same time that the conch breaks which is ironic because he was the most civil person on the island.

Golding shows how the boys slowly have the urge to kill and become savage. They are persuaded and manipulated by jack to join him in his corruption of civil society on the island. The beast is one of things which Jack uses to motivate people to become savage. It was just a snake that the littluns saw at first. Everyone got scared and had no reason to be, so they made the beast up in there minds so they had a reason to be scared and have something to blame their fear on. Simon actually talks with the beast and it tells him that there is no beast and that the beast is inside all of them, it is the darker side of man. It warns him that he will die if he tried telling anyone else. 'We shall do you.' He does try to tell the others and the other boys are the ones who kill him because the savage within them was released and the boys let it loose on Simon. The beast is the authors own point of view coming into the novel and the author gives the reader his moral, which is that there is a beast in everyone.

All the boys on the island want to be rescued and want an adult to come. Ironically the boys wishes come true when a adult does arrive. The adult that arrives is parachutist. He is dead. This indicates that there might not be a home left for them to go to because the war situation may have destroyed it. When the boys first see the body of this man they think its the beast because of the horrific image of his movement, going backwards and forwards as the parachute fills with air. The body slowly decays and with it did the morality of the boys.

Golding is saying that you cannot have civilisation without rules, order and organisation.

Hamad Ayaz 10k2