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Does the author use any symbolism that is important through out the course of the novel? What are they and how do they affect the plot?

There are many symbols throughout The Lord of the Flies that eventually lead to the theme based on what it/he did in the novel. Some of these include the conch, the sow's head, and the beast.

The conch shell represents civilization in a society, so when Piggy dies along with the conch, all heck breaks loose. Samneric get captured, and a man-hunt is prepared with a "double-pointed spear", which shows that they plan on beheading Ralph and sticking his head on a stick, just like what was done with a sow just days before. It doesn't just show civilization, but it is the actual thing used for a form of politics and democracy. Whoever had the conch could talk in an assembly, which would be called by the conch as well. In the book it describes it as "being shattered into a million pieces out of existence", just like their society's civilization. It CANNOT be rebuilt.

Next, Piggy's glasses represent who has the power on the island. Whereas the conch represents the political power, the glasses hold as a symbol of having power over the other people. When Jack's tribe had the specs, Ralph could not do what he thought must be done, the signal fire. And vice versa; Jack could not cook his meat without the glasses.

The signal fire was more a hope of the kids than it was a symbol, but it is still important. It is their only hope of being connected with the world off the island. When Jack gave the fire up, it shows that maybe he wants to be on the island, where there are no rules, and most of the other biguns just wanted to have fun. But some still had hope of being rescued, and still held the signal fire as a ruthless connection with anything past the ocean that held the island on which they then stood.

The Beast is more itself than a symbol, but still, it symbolizes the savagery that the boys have within. The longer they're on the island, the more they believe in the Beast, but only because they resort to savagery, do they see the Beast, for the Beast is within them all, deep in there, seen only if it's taken out.

Another thing that represents savagery is the boys' hair. The longer it is, the messier it is, the more filled with twigs it is, the more savage they are. Ralph suggested at one point, to get a haircut, to be more civilized, and at another time to put it up nicely and wash it, to look like civilized people.

Another HUGE symbol in this novel is the Lord of the Flies itself. "Lord of the Flies" in Hebrew is Ba'alzevuv. Does that sound familiar? That same work in Greek is Beelzebub, meaning the Devil. The Lord of the Flies in this novel acts the same way as Satan, even exists the same way. It lives in everyone. That growing evil that tries to convince you to stray away from the right thing. It can sometimes be seen in other forms, but in reality is deep inside of you, waiting to strike. It is the symbol of evil.

Lastly, we have a few of the boys on the island. Ralph, Piggy, Jack, Roger, and last but DEFINITELY not least, Simon. Ralph represents order, law, and civilization, which everyone eventually turn against, except those too young to understand why this would not be appealing. It's boring. Second, Piggy represents the intellectuality of civilization, and in order to bring down the civilization, this must first be removed, just like what happened in the book. Jack, then, represents, obviously, desire for power, leading humanity to savagery by attempting to take out civilization. Roger is a symbol of brutality, evil, and extreme blood lust. Because of this, Roger becomes the torturer of Jack's tribe. All these are struggles against each other in society, leading to my theme of an impossible utopian society, for not all sides of the struggle can get what they want. Simon, however, is a symbol for much much more than just an aspect of society. He is a Christ figure. Just as in the desert, Jesus struggled with temptation against Satan, just as Simon struggled persuasion by the Lord of the Flies, a symbol for Satan. When Jesus came to save the world, many people saw him as crazy, just as people saw Simon with insomnia. Any relations yet? Another BIG one. Jesus came to save everyone, but was rejected and killed. Did not the same happen to Simon?


-Tanner-

Please choose one passage from the novel that is significant to you. Why is this passage meaningful? Please type it into one of your entries and comment on what you think about the passage.

To put things simple, my favourite paragraph in the whole book would hardly be classified long enough to be a passage, which was "Desperately, Ralph prayed that the beast would prefer littluns." However, I highly doubt this blog assignment's point is to find humour in the book. So, I have found a much more.... significant passage. This is when Simon first encounter the Lord of the Flies, which actually has great meaning that I explained in my "symbolism" (entry of choice =P) question. But for now, page 137~144:


Simon stayed where he was, a small brown image, concealed by the leaves. Even if he shut his eyes the sow's head still remained like an after-image. The half-shut eyes with the infinite cynicism of adult life. They assured Simon that everything was a bad business.

"I know that."

Simon discovered that he had spoken aloud. He opened his eyes quickly and there was the head grinning amusedly in the strange daylight, ignoring the flies, the spilled guts, even ignoring the indignity of being spiked on a stick.

He looked away, licking his dry lips.

A gift for the beast. Might not the beast come for it? The head, he thought, appeared to agree with him. Run away, said the head silently, go back to the others. It was a joke really--why should you bother? You were just wrong, that's all. A little headache, something you ate, perhaps. Go back, child, said the head silently.

Simon looked up, feeling the weight of his wet hair, and gazed at the sky. Up there, for once, were clouds, great bulging towers that sprouted away over the island, grey and cream and copper-colored. The clouds were sitting on the land; they squeezed, produced moment by moment this close, tormenting heat. Even the butterflies deserted the open space where the obscene thing grinned and dripped. Simon lowered his head, carefully keeping his eyes shut, then sheltered them with his hand. There were no shadows under the trees but everywhere a pearly stillness, so that what was real seemed illusive and without definition. The pile of guts was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw. After a while these flies found Simon. Gorged, they alighted by his runnels of sweat and drank. They tickled under his nostrils and played leapfrog on his thighs. They were black and iridescent green and without number; and in front of Simon, the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned. At last Simon gave up and looked back; saw the white teeth and dim eyes, the blood--and his gaze was held by the ancient, inescapable recognition. In Simon's right temple, a pulse began to beat on the brain.

***

"You are a silly boy," said the Lord of the Flies, "just an ignorant, silly boy."

Simon moved his swollen tongue and said nothing.

"Don't you agree?" said the Lord of the Flies. "Aren't you just a silly boy?"

Simon answered in the same silent voice.

"Well then," said the Lord of the Flies, "you'd better run off and play with the others. They think you're batty. You don't want Ralph to think you're batty, do you? You like Ralph a lot, don't you? And Piggy, and Jack?"

Simon's head was tilted slightly up. His eyes could not break away and the Lord of the Flies hung in space before him.

"What are you doing out here all alone? Aren't you afraid of me?"

Simon shook.

"There isn't anyone to help you. Only me. And I'm the Beast."

Simon's mouth labored, brought forth audible words.

"Pig's head on a stick."

"Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!" said the head. For a moment or two the forest and all the other dimly appreciated places echoed with the parody of laughter. "You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you? Close, close close! I'm the reason why it's no go? Why things are what they are?"

The laughter shivered again.

"Come now," said the Lord of the Flies. "Get back to the others and we'll forget the whole thing."

Simon's head wobbled. His eyes were half closed as though he were imitating the obscene thing on the stick. He knew that one of his times was coming on. The Lord of the Flies was expanding like a balloon.

"This is ridiculous. You know perfectly well you'll only meet me down there--so don't try to escape!"

Simon's body was arched and stiff. The Lord of the Flies spoke in the voice of a schoolmaster.

"This has gone quite far enough. My poor, misguided child, do you think you know better than I do?"

There was a pause.

"I'm warning you. I'm going to get angry. D'you see? You're not wanted. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island! So don't try it on, my poor misguided boy, or else--"

Simon found he was looking into a vast mouth. There was blackness within, a blackness that spread.

"--Or else," said the Lord of the Flies, "we shall do you? See? Jack and Roger and Maurice and Robert and Bill and Piggy and Ralph. Do you. See?"

Simon was inside the mouth. He fell down and lost consciousness.


This passage, at first, was very confusing, and only after an interpretation given by Mrs. Lavender was given to me (thanks^^) did I start to understand what Golding was trying to say. At first, I got really overwhelmed because I had thought that I understood it, but had in fact misinterpreted it. I had thought that the flies swarmed Simon and he was the Lord of the Flies. I was all like, "Oh! Yessss!!!!! My favourite character is the Lord of the Flies!!!" But then after awhile the plot didn't match up with my interpretation, and the story did not make any sense. So, I reread it and presumed that maybe it's Simon talking to himself, but after a third reread, I had decided that the Lord of the Flies was some type of spirit or something living in the remains of the dead pig, only to find out that that didn't make the story any easier to understand than either of the first two. So, I did what I had to do and took my question to the all-knowing Mrs. Lavender. Then everything became so obvious!

Simon had been fainting and wandering off a few other times in the book before this point, so it was apparent that he was suffering something. Insomnia. Simon was an insomniac. The Lord of the Flies is sort of a... split personality, inside of him, telling him what to do and what not to do. It's sort of like in those movies where a person is having an internal conflict on deciding to do a good or bad thing, and the little angel him and the little devil him are trying to persuade him on his shoulder. Except Simon is already good, and the Lord of the Flies wants him to do bad. The bad being that everyone has a "Lord of the Flies" in them, so to speak, which, evidently, is the Beast (this is shown when the Lord of the Flies had said, "Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!"). The Beast within themselves, for that's what they should really be afraid of on the island. Not some Beast that a few people may have gotten a glimpse of (which eventually leads out to be just a shadow of a dead parachuter), but each other. No Beast has killed any of the boys on the island, but Simon and Piggy are both aggressively killed, and the boy with the mulberry birthmark burns to death. All three deaths are a cause of the other boys. They are the Beast.

Also, I got really confused on the part where it says that Simon fell into the pig's mouth, but realized later on that he was fainting and the images in his brain were distorting.

But overall, I'm very glad that I understood this passage, because it is crucial in the book, and, evidently, leads to the climax of The Lord of the Flies.


-Tanner-

What is the climax of this novel? What happens? How do the events of this novel make you feel?

The climax of this novel is nearly right after Simon wakes up from his faint after his encounter with the Lord of the Flies. All the boys on the island (except for Simon, who was at that time just regaining consciousness) are at Jock's tribal beach place, having a feast, eating the meat from the same sow as the head that Lord of the Flies uses as an "image" for Simon. They start their hunting chant and the climax goes on... Here's page 152~154:


"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"

The movement became regular while the chant lost its first superficial excitement and began to beat like a steady pulse. Roger ceased to be a pig and became a hunter, so that the center of the ring yawned emptily. Some of the littluns started a ring on their own; and the complimentary circles went round and round as though repetition would achieve safety of itself. There was the throb and stamp of a single organism.

The dark sky was shattered by a blue-white scar. An instant later the noise was on them like the blow of a gigantic whip. The chant rose a tone in agony.

"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"

Now out of the terror rose another desire, thick, urgent, blind.

"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"

Again the blue-white scar jagged above them and the sulphurous explosion beat down. The littluns screamed and blundered about, fleeing from the edge of the forest, and one of them broke the ring of biguns in his terror.

"Him! Him!"

The circle became a horseshoe. A thing was crawling out of the forest. It came darkly, uncertainly. The shrill screaming that rose before the beast was like a pain. The beast stumbled into the horseshoe.

"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"

The blue-white scar was constant, the noise unendurable. Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill.

"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!"

The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed. The beast was on its knees in the center, its arms folded over its face. It was crying out against the abominable noise something about a body on the hill. The beats struggled forward, broke the ring and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the sand by the water. At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.

Then the clouds opened and let down the rain like a waterfall. The water bounded from the mountain-top, tore leaves and branches from the trees, poured like a cold shower over the struggling heap on the sand. Presently the heap broke up and figures staggered away. Only the beast lay still, a few yards from the sea. Even in the rain they could see how small a beast it was; and already its blood was staining the sand.

***

Somewhere over the darkened curve of the world the sun and moon were pulling, and the film of water on the earth planet was held, bulging slightly on one side while the solid core turned. The great wave of the tide moved farther along the island and the water lifted. Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath steadfast constellations, Simon's dead body moved out toward the open sea.


If I were asked this question just last year, my response would have been much different. I would have said that the climax of The Lord of the Flies was when Jack and his tribe had a man-hunt to kill Ralph, because that was the "most exciting part" of the book. But now I know that the climax is "the point of no return". My view of the climax is changed, so I say that this scene is the climax of the whole story. If they had not killed Simon, he would have told them the truth about the Beast, saving them from the chaos that was to come; but they did, in fact, murder him, changing the whole course of the story.

I, personally, didn't like the climax of this story (I liked the book, however), though it was necessary in order to portray the theme that Golding has so effectively shown. I didn't like it because Simon was my favourite character, and also the boys' only hope to be saved from each other. But they killed him. How can he save them if he's dead? He can't! After I read this scene, I stopped reading and sat in a corner, angry at that id**t William Golding for killing poor, little Simon. Simon's not supposed to die! They NEED him! He is the one that's supposed to overcome the Lord of the Flies, and save the island and its society of young boys. BUT HE DIED!!!!!!!! No hope for the island, unless, of course, an adult comes to save them, which, obviously, CANNOT HAPPEN (though it did) because of the lack of a signal fire.

But, in the end, Simon's death was needed for Golding's book to be of value. I realize that, so I'm not going to complain.... as much. But, yeah. This is what I believe to be the climax of The Lord of the Flies.


-Tanner-

Who are the main characters in the novel? Do you like them? Why or why not? What is special about them? What do they reveal about the universal human experience?

There are quite a few characters that are important in this story, but I shall only go in depth with three of them. Ralph: the good, Jack: the evil, and Simon: the needed. Though Simon is the only of these three that died, he is equally, if not more, important than the other two, and that is why he is my favourite character in the novel.

Ralph, basically, is the protagonist of this story. He is the good guy. He is elected cheif through democracy and tries his hardest to make a good society out of the stranded boys. However, not all are pleased with his ideas.

Jack Merridew is the primary antagonist of The Lord of the Flies. He is the bad guy, disapproving of Ralph being cheif. Disapproving of the rules he makes. Disapproving of the lack of freedom. He wants to have fun. He wants to hunt... and kill the huntee.

Those two I just went over breifly because that's not who I want to talk about. Who I really care about, is Simon. If asked who the main character was I would go with Ralph in a literatural point-of-view. But if you asked me who the main character was in a theme-related point-of-view, definately Simon. Simon is a Christ figure in this book, fighting against the Lord of the Flies, just as Jesus Christ fights against Satan. He dies trying to save everyone else, just as Jesus did. He is hte main character of The Lord of the Flies.


-Tanner-

PS: More can be found about them in my "symbolism" blog...

Are there any current situations in the world that relate to the novel? What are they, and how do they relate? Does the novel shed any light on how current situations could be resolved or "fixed"?

Currently, the world is mostly at peace, but some worldy conflicts cease to end. However, I do not know these, but what I'm about to say is a conflict in the world.

Just like a utopian society cannot be made, a "utopian person" cannot exist. Nobody's perfect. We all have conflicts in our lives, even me! I know that's hard to believe, but it's true. You do too. Just take a moment now and think what problems you have in your life before you continue reading.

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Did you think about it?

Are you sure?

Okay. I believe you... this time.

Anyway, we all have problems in our life. These are actually conflicts, made by others, made by you, and made by even some non-living things, like video games: "I HATE THIS GAME!! I ALWAYS DIE!!!" Sound familiar? If you played any video game you know how that feels. But all these conflicts created take the form of problems, which will try to be "utopian", but will fail. If tried to hard, you'll push you're problems in (a perfect person can't have problems, right?) and eventually, they'll build up so much that they will explode in a big fiery ball of chaotic recklessness. Do NOT try to be perfect. It's no use. You'll break down. System Error. Game Over. Continue? Yes/No. Back to the concept of video games. Even if you choose to "continue" you have to start a big chunk all over. The same goes in life.

Like I said, everyone has all these conflicts, and the only thing that can resolve these conflicts is a passive force, like the government. Yet even that passive force has problems, just like in the novel when the officer saved the boys, while the same time being in the middle of World War II. Ironic.


-Tanner-

What is the major theme of this novel? Why is this theme important to a teenager living in 2008?

Many interpretations of what the major theme of The Lord of the Flies is have been made, some similar and some quite different from Golding’s own interpretation. According to Golding “the theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectful. The whole book is symbolic in nature except the rescue in the end where adult life appears, dignified and capable, but in reality enmeshed in the same evil as the symbolic life of the children on the island. The officer, having interrupted a man-hunt, prepares to take the children off the island in a cruiser which will presently be hunting its enemy in the same implacable way. And who will rescue the adult and his cruiser?”

My interpretation of the theme is quite similar, but some aspects may differ from Golding’s original suggestion. To put things simple, because of the nature of humanity, a utopian society is literally IMPOSSIBLE to create. One may be in existence for a short period of time, but eventually, all of the internal and external conflicts going on within the society between one or more opposing figures, will be enough to break the society's structure, leading it to chaos. Therefore, as a moral instead of a theme, one should not attempt to create a utopian society, for it will eventually break and end up worse than it started with.

Now you may start thinking, "They're children!! Of course they're going to have little unimportant conflicts!" If that is, in fact, how you are thinking, then you are neglecting to realize the period that Golding was writing this novel, and also the time that The Lord of the Flies takes place. World War II. The ship that came and saved what remained of the savage schoolboys in Chapter 12 was a cruiser that was sent out too do work that was caused by a disagreement and conflict in society. Ironic, really. The ones that came and ended one society's conflict are the same ones that are creating a World War over theirs. World War is much more of an overreaction than a simple man-hunt. Unless, what Jack and his tribe was attempting to achieve was a genocide, a mass killing of anyone siding with Ralph? I don't know, but either way, it doesn't change the theme of this novel.

Though this may be the theme, another theme may be rooted from the novel's context. The loss of innocence. The boys from Chapter 12 are not the same boys that tried to build a society in Chapter 1. Without anyone to keep order, humanity roots to savagery. Savagery is overly used in this novel, and for a reason two. Golding isn't just using the word savagery as a metaphor, or as a neat word. He uses it to emphasize the importance in it, the importance in the theme that these conflicts do result to savagery. Even today. The government, the court, the law, etc. is the only thing keeping people from heading to the path of savagery, away from order and civilization. Everyone naturally has this "evil" within them that leads to savagery and these things are the only things that are keeping them held within, not letting them out to the world. Some say that rules were meant to be broken. Others say that they were made to keep from harm. But I say that they are made to keep order, to keep us safe from each other, from the Beast. We are the Beast.


-Tanner-