structured civil society. Piggy remained loyal to Ralph even after Jack usurped power and the majority of the boys joined Jack's tribe. With Piggy dead and Samneric taken captive, Ralph is completely on his own and left to fend for himself. Ralph feels hopeless and tries to convince himself that what happened to Piggy was an accident. Eventually, Ralph can no longer deny the truth. Golding mentions that the deaths of Piggy andSimon lay over the island like a vapor when Ralph realizes that the boys will continue their decent into savagery by hunting him like a pig. Ralph knows it is only a matter of time before Jack and the boys attempt to kill him. With Piggy dead and the conch broken, Ralph is hopeless on the island full of savages. 

Piggy, who has always appeared older than the other boys with his thick body and thinning hair and poor eyesight, is representative of maturity of thought and rationality. For he is the one who finds the conch and suggests to Ralph that it can be used for assembling the boys; he is the one who suggests that the boys with him can make a fire on the beach as a signal just as easily as on the mountain after Jack and the hunters steal the fire. 

But Piggy's maturity and rational behavior is threatened by the savagery of the hunters who steal his glasses, and the sadism of Roger. So, in Chapter Eleven when Ralph and Piggy and the others approach the hunters to demand the return of Piggy's glasses, Roger arrests their approach. Ralph identifies himself and says that he is calling a meeting, but Roger keeps his hand upon the lever of the rock that is poised over the bridge. After Jack usurps power from Ralph, Roger releases the boulder with "delirious abandonment" and it strikes Piggy, hurling him downward to death, symbolizing the end of all rationality and civilized behavior.

His head opened...and turned red. Piggy's arms and legs twitched a bit....Then the sea breathed again in a long, slow sigh...sucking back again, the body of Piggy was gone.

As heart-breaking as Piggy's violent death is in Lord of the Flies, Golding uses the moment symbolically to represent an end to civilization and order on the island.  Roger, the symbol of ultimate evil, releases the giant boulder that smashes the conch and kills Piggy; his death is incredibly symbolic, especially in the way he dies; being smashed by a boulder is not only an extremely violent way to die, but it is also senseless and meaningless.  The moment is a snapshot for the most important theme of the novel, civilization and order against chaos and savagery. 

Piggy's death is extremely similar to Simon's in that both result from violent savagery under Jack's guidance and leadership.  Although Piggy's death had a much different setting, Roger is the instigator; his action of leaning on the lever resulted in the boulder crushing Piggy.  Roger also figures as one of the key instigators in Simon's mob-death, because Roger takes up the role of play-acting inside the circle before Simon enters in the dark and is killed by the boys. 

In both murder scenes, the killing of each boy stems from a 'mob mentality,' whether it is the deathly dance circle which pulverizes Simon or the 'us versus them' mentality that lends Roger the confidence to lean on the lever under the boulder.  If Roger had felt in any way insecure in his position, he would not have been gutsy enough to kill Piggy; but at Castle Rock, surrounded by other savages and Jack as the wild chief, Roger felt just the right amount of security that he needed to know that his foul deed would be accepted, even embraced.

Similarly, the aftermath of both deaths takes place in the sea, where the waves wash away the evidence of the boys' wrong doing.  Simon's body travels out to sea, and Piggy's body is knocked over the side of the cliff and onto the rocks.  Golding uses the sea as a cleansing agent in the novel, erasing the record of the boys' murderous deeds, therefore making them more easily forgotten or ignored. 

Both Simon and Piggy's deaths are the culmination of unchecked savagery and violence.

Piggy is a social outcast. He has asthma, which he calls "ass-mar," wears glasses, and is fat. He tells Ralph that at school he used to be called Piggy, which is what he is called on the island. So already, we are associating this character with the animal he is named for.

In chapter four, Jack and his hunters kill a pig for food. Their hunting turns to savagery when they take down a pregnant sow. At this point they are bloodthirsty, as evidenced by their chants and the multiple stabbings they carry out . It might have been smarter to hunt another pig for the sake of sustainability and let the sow give birth to more pigs that could be hunted for food.

In their mania, the boys kill Simon while chanting "kill the beast!" Simon crawled toward them at night during a storm. There is no chance for confusion with Piggy's death, however. Roger pushes a boulder on top of him. Piggy has "no time for even a grunt," and his "arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig's after it has been killed."

Piggy's murder shows the departure from civilization. He is equated to an animal because the boys kill him like they would an animal. They have lost their humanity.

For one thing, his name connects him.  Piggy, Ralph, and Simon never fit into Jack's group.  They were the reasoners, the order and peace keepers, the ones who made everyone understand the seriousness of the situation and the importance of everyone doing his amount of work in order to survive.  This did not fit into Jack's plan of having fun and hunting for food. 

So, the three of them were "hunted" just as the wild pigs on the island. Simon succumbed early to stabs on the beach, and Piggy followed not long after with a boulder to his head.  Only Ralph survived the hunt, but probably would not have had the Navy not spotted the island-wide fire Jack set to "smoke" the piggy Ralph out of his hiding place.

The acts of murder that occur in the story are a way of showing the breakdown of social order. The boys, away from the strict rules and structures of their school, are shown to be capable of violence, cruelty, and tyranny. Because Jack's "tribe" rebels against Simon and Piggy, the de facto "leaders" due to their intelligence and desire to maintain order, it can be seen as a rebellion against the same sort of social order and leadership they had back home before their exile on the island. "Pig" is a slang term for law enforcement and it is possible that the slaughter of Piggy is symbolic in this way: a killing and destruction of social order, authority and rules of law (such as the use of the conch for speaking).

The pigs of the island are also a sort of authority presence, since they have lived there for a long time and know the environment; they have a sort of expertise and wisdom regarding this place that the boys do not. The pigs are like an elder indigenous tribe of the island, knowledgable of its traditions, and in that way deserving of respect. By killing the pigs recklessly, especially the mother pig who could have helped provide a more sustainable food source, the boys are literally murdering wisdom and tradition. Piggy's murder is similar: by killing him for wanting to exercise a traditional sort of leadership and logic, Jack and his followers are overthrowing the old rules in favor of a sort of anarchy based in selfish needs instead of logic, order and cooperation.

The first pig was killed to provide meat, but then the killing became more of a power trip for Jack and his tribe.  When they kill the mother pig, they are foolish because they are killing what could be a future source of food.  Rather than look for another pig, the killing is done because they CAN kill. It is senseless.  The killing of Piggy is senseless, too, for the most part.  Piggy represents intellect and killing him is therefore killing intellect on the island.  In the aspect that it was essential to kill intellect on the island so that the evil could fully emerge, then killing Piggy was essential just like killing the pig for food was essential.