What is Golding telling us about society in Lord of the Flies? William Golding is trying to show savagery through the children in this novel
Lord of the Flies
What is Golding telling us about society in Lord of the Flies?
William Golding is trying to show savagery through the children in this novel. He is telling us that anybody could have a savage side to themselves and it is how you control the savagery in yourself.
In the first few chapters, the first point made is that there is a sense of normality and civility in the beginning that is occurring.
Firstly the boys make one of the first rules which is to call assemblies with the conch and whoever is holding the conch can speak without interruption, 'We can use this to call the others. Have a meeting. They'll come when they hear us'. This shows that Piggy's thinking will lead to rules they will be setting and it shows a sense of order, early on in this novel.
With the conch in the hands of Ralph, he calls an assembly, and a leader is chosen which is Ralph. This again shows order and civility. This shows that the boys can organise themselves and they are capable in peace.
Later on in the novel they decide they have to get a fire going in order to be seen so they could be rescued. This is organisation as this shows:- 'His specs - use them as burning glasses'. This soon turns into tragedy as they lose a boy in the fire, 'The boys looked at each other fearfully, unbelieving. - where is he now?'
In chapter four, things start to go wrong, firstly little things. Roger was throwing sand, kicking sand, and throwing stones at Henry were examples of this.
In chapter five, the civility is slowly decreasing as no one is letting the person holding the conch speak. The rules set were being broken. The little ones were crying and the boys let the fire out. Ralph says, 'We decide thing but they never get done'. This shows that they are not sticking to their rules and keep breaking them. Towards the end of chapter five, Ralph has had enough ...
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In chapter four, things start to go wrong, firstly little things. Roger was throwing sand, kicking sand, and throwing stones at Henry were examples of this.
In chapter five, the civility is slowly decreasing as no one is letting the person holding the conch speak. The rules set were being broken. The little ones were crying and the boys let the fire out. Ralph says, 'We decide thing but they never get done'. This shows that they are not sticking to their rules and keep breaking them. Towards the end of chapter five, Ralph has had enough and he can't take much more of what is going on. He says, 'If only they could get a message to us, if only they could send us something grown-up... a sign or something'. Earlier on in this chapter, the boys start to think there is some kind of beast that is haunting them and they are frightened of it, especially the little ones. This shows that the civility is slowly fading away and savagery is taking its place.
In the sixth chapter, Ralphs prayers of having someone grown-up is answered but the grown-up is dead and is parachuted down to the island. The boys think it is the beast. Samneric see the parachutist and say, 'We saw the beast', but the boys soon realise the, ' beast' was a parachutist and starts to think it is something else.
In the seventh chapter, there is more savagery than civility as the boys try to imitate them killing a pig using Robert as the pig and stabbing him with spears until they hurt him. The tension between Jack and Ralph is growing, 'Ralph heard the mockery and hated Jack'. This shows the hatred is growing and they are not working well as a group. The fear of the beast in the boys and a lack of society is stopping them working together as a group.
In the eighth chapter, Jack's tribe hunt down and kill a pig, they cut its head off and put it on a stick which is embedded to the ground, as a gift for the beast. Later Simon encounters the head, and manages to start talking to the thing, although it is mostly in his imagination. The black cloud of flies coating the head causes it to now be called 'The Lord of the Flies'. The Lord of the Flies says "I'm part of you...We're going to have fun on this island." It continues to say that if Simon tries to talk to the others about the beast, that he will be killed by everyone, including Ralph and Piggy. After taking this all in, Simon feels a faint coming on and collapses. The head tries to tell Simon some kind of a 'message' from the unknown. The Lord of the Flies basically confirms to Simon that the beast really is 'inside' everyone, but says that everyone would rather have fun than worry about anything else. It signifies the savage side in humans.
Everything was a game until the beast. The beast signals the end of the games and the start of reality. Lives are at stake and survival must occur in any form. Our society is much like this as today's society is also about survival and what choices we make to survive.
The beast is used by Jack to gain power over the rest of the group. His promises and actions to kill the beast eased the fear of the boys and so he eventually won over the group.
Violence in the book increases as it does society today. This violence causes the next death. The killing of the beast or Simon. The group recognised him as the beast although they know it was Simon, but as they all joined in, killing Simon became a cheered event. 'Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!', they chanted as they were killing Simon. The killing of Simon did not seem like a tragedy for them. Through this, the boys realised that nothing would happen if they killed humans. The killing of Simon was not an event enjoyed by everyone as Ralph and the twins realised the mistake. ' That was murder', said Ralph in chapter ten.
Chapter eleven sees the death of Piggy. Piggy's death shows the most disregard for death as Jack declares that he meant to kill Piggy and then he starts a completely defined death hunt for Ralph. Our society to today has changed to peace push after the world wars. However there are still some disregard for human life because of terrorism and these sort of things. At the end of chapter eleven, after killing Piggy, Jack says, 'See? See? That's what you'll get! I meant that!', he is clearly implying that he meant to kill Piggy. All of the other deaths were kind of 'accidents' because the group regrets it afterwards. In the killing of Piggy, Jack does not regret it.
The final chapter sees the end of all this savagery and violence among the group. The group are rescued by the Naval Officer. The significance of the Officer in this final chapter is the way he turns a blind eye to the boys and waits for them to pull themselves together.
In conclusion the Lord of the Flies is the picture of our society today. It shows the darkness or savagery of a man's heart and where the lack of control over this savagery can result in killing and violence. When laws and morals no longer apply to us then the savagery will be released. The picture of our society is a picture that exists and will remain with us wherever we go.
Mahesh Vidhyadharan
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