boys about the truth regarding the beast but stumbles onto the beach during a violent tropical storm. The boys have already worked themselves into a frenzy and mistake Simon for the beast. They proceed to rip, tear, beat, and stab the innocent, defenseless boy until he dies on the blood-covered beach.

Simon's death symbolically represents the point of no return as the boys completely lose hope of behaving civilly on the uninhabited island. Simon's brutal death is juxtaposed with the serene natural ceremony, which lightens the intense, dark mood of the story. While Simon's horrific death is not warranted, his tranquil departure is justified and emphasizes his benevolent, peaceful character. Golding's use of imagery in chapter 9 also juxtaposes the beauty of the natural world with the horrific actions of the boys, which highlights the main theme of humanity's corrupt nature.

The entire setting of William Golding's Lord of the Flies is integral to the story. The schoolboys have been left stranded on an island and their trouble begins immediately. Golding uses various kinds of imagery to depict each significant place on the island, such as calling the place where the airplane sliced through the brush "the scar." One of the most vivid and haunting uses of imagery can be found in the description of the patch of island which the boys burn what they intended to be a "small fire."

The most notable imagery in the description of the burning foliage is personification, as Golding gives life (a human characteristic) to the fire the boys start in chapter two. The flames "stirred" and "crawled away."

One patch touched a tree trunk and scrambled up like a bright squirrel.... Beneath the dark canopy of leaves and smoke the fire laid hold on the forest and began to gnaw.... The flames, as though they were a kind of wild life, crept as a jaguar creeps on its belly toward a line of birch-like saplings that fledged an outcrop of the pink rock.

Finally, the flame "leapt nimbly" until the "noises of the fire merged into a drum-roll that seemed to shake the mountain."

The use of personification gives actual life to the flames which so quickly consume the island greenery. Note also Golding's use of simile (in the quote above) as he compares the flames first to a scampering squirrel and then to a wild jaguar on the hunt. It is an apt comparison, as the fire consumes both the greenery and the little boy with the birthmark on his face.

Golding's use of imagery to create this particular setting allows the reader to imagine the terrifying terrain in which the first of many terrible things happen. 

Imagery is a description that uses the five senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell to create a picture.

Much of Golding's nature imagery builds a sense of unease. Early in the book, as Ralph, Jack, and Simon climb to the top of the island, the rocks are described as looking as if

some unknown force had wrenched and shattered these cubes

The sun is described using the dangerous imagery of warfare:

the afternoon sun emptied down invisible arrows.

More imagery that describes nature in the form of weaponry comes as a storm brews:

thunder went off like a gun.

Unease emerges in the interaction of the boys and the thunderstorm:

The hunters were looking uneasily at the sky, flinching from the stroke of the drops. A wave of restlessness set the boys swaying and moving aimlessly. The flickering light became brighter and the blows of the thunder were only just bearable. The littluns began to run about, screaming.

The boys "flinch" when the drops of rain hit them as if they are blows. The sound of the thunder is also described as "blows." The younger boys scream in response.

There is also a sense of unease in some of the other human sound effects, such as Piggy's reaction as Jack snatches his glasses from his face so they can use them to generate heat to light a fire: Piggy's "voice rose to a shriek."

We feel uneasy, too, as Henry exerts control over small sea creatures: he "crowded" them together, and we are offered a picture of his footprints as "bays" that "trapped" them.

Simon battles nature as he searches for the beast:

He pushed himself forward and the wind came again, stronger now, cuffing the forest heads till they ducked and roared.

The imagery of the dead parachuter he finds is also uneasy, with its rotting corpse "breathing foully" on him.

Nature and humans are often pictured pitted against each other antagonistically in this novel in ways that are unnerving.

In Lord of the Flies, author William Golding presents the importance of settings to clue the reader into the fight between civilized versus wild behavior that the group of British school boys stranded on a deserted island faces.

The boys must fend for themselves. They live without adults to provide for them or the structure of a civilized society to guide and curb their actions. They must find food, take care of the younger children, and try to maintain order. Golding uses words such as course, dried, decaying, uncompromising, hot, and dark with “heaps of sharp stone” to describe elements of the island. This contributes to the reader’s understanding of the difficulties facing the boys. Specifically:

The shore was fledged with palm trees. These stood or leaned or reclined against the light and their green feathers were a hundred feet up in the air. The ground beneath them was a bank covered with coarse grass, torn everywhere by the upheavals of fallen trees, scattered with decaying coconuts and palm saplings. Behind this was the darkness of the forest proper and the open space of the scar…perhaps a mile away, the white surf flinked on a coral reef, and beyond that the open sea was dark blue. Within the irregular arc of coral the lagoon was still as a mountain lake—blue of all shades and shadowy green and purple. The beach between the palm terrace and the water was a thin stick, endless apparently…and always, almost visible, was the heat.

These descriptions enable the reader to understand the importance of the setting and why many of the boys deviate so drastically from society’s constraints and allow their violent sides to take over. Essentially, the island is wild, and the boys become wild.

The boys have no tools and must find food. Vegetation is available but not necessary plentiful. For instance, the fruit in the green feathers of the palm trees was not easily accessible “a hundred feet up in the air.” The grass was coarse. Decaying, inedible coconuts were scattered about. The forest was dark.

Conversely, the more civilized aspects of the boys’ lives takes place within the pleasant, more tranquil parts of the island. For instance:

Ralph…stood looking down into the water. It was clear to the bottom and bright with the efflorescence of tropical weed and coral. A school of tiny, glittering fish flicked hither and thither.

They use this spot to make a natural wading pool to cool from the intense heat and socialize together. They also hold their assemblies here as they attempt to create order within their island society.