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Lord of the Flies

by William Golding

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Discussion Topic

The symbolism of characters and objects in William Golding's Lord of the Flies

Summary:

In Lord of the Flies, characters and objects are rich with symbolism. Ralph represents order and leadership, while Jack embodies savagery and the desire for power. Piggy symbolizes intellect and reason. The conch shell signifies authority and governance, and the "beast" represents the primal fear within humans. The "Lord of the Flies" itself symbolizes the inherent evil present in everyone.

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What do Ralph, Jack, Piggy, Simon, the conch, the island, and the pig's head symbolize in Lord of the Flies?

One approach to identifying the symbols of Lord of the Flies is to consider William Golding's novel a religious and psychological allegory.  By doing so, the characters can represent, or symbolize, certain types.

As previously mentioned, the island is like the Garden of Eden on which the boys arrive from a society engaged in war.  Now that they are removed from the war and the influence of society in the form of adults, the boys must survive by using their own natural inclinations and thoughts.  Each of the main characters, then, represents--symbolizes--a certain type of person. 

  • Ralph, is the golden boy, the born leader type.  He is symbolic of the physical presence for leadership, a charismatic type, as it were.  At the same time, he is symbolic of the innocent, the ingenuous, who is unprepared for dealing with "the evil that men do," as Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar.
  • Piggy is the intellectual, the voice of reason without the brawn necessary to deal with savage forces. His heaviness, near-sightedness, and thinning hair connote age and its acquired wisdom.
  • Simon is the intuitive type.  He learns through emotional, rather than intellectual, experience as does Piggy. Because he feels, rather than rationalizes, knowledge, it is impossible for him to verbalize his realization that the evil on the island is intrinsic to the boys and not a "beast."
  • Jack symbolizes the penchant for savagery and the intrinsic evil in man.   Roger best explains this intrinsic evil as in Chapter Four he restrains himself from striking Henry with the stones--"that token of preposterous time"--he throws only because the "taboo of the old life"/his conditioning "by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins." 
  • the pig's head is Beelezebub, the devil.  It represents the evil in man after his fall and expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
  • the conch is symbolic of order.  Like a gavel, it is meant to call the boys to order.  However, once anarchy takes over, the conch loses its significance and is broken against the ancient stones.
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In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, why are the conch, Piggy, Jack, and the island considered symbols?

William Golding's novel, Lord of the Flies, has been approached critically in differing ways.  One such way is the psychoanalytical approach, particularly that of Sigmund Freud. According to Freud, gods and devils are basically human processes projected onto the human world.  Thus, according to critic Claire Rosenfield, Ralph represents a projection of man's good impulses, from which people derive authority figures, and Jack, on the contrary, represents the evil, instinctual forces of the unconscious.

Working with this dichotomy, Piggy, who is associated with Ralph represents the rational side of man, the mature man of society who has an acceptance of rules and order.  As such, he looks older with his thinning hair, myopic eyes that need glasses, and heavy body.  It is Piggy who suggests using the conch to call the boys to order when they need to meet and discuss important issues: 

How can you expect to be rescued if you don't put first things first and act proper? 

The conch is much like the gavel that is used by judges who call the court to order.  Near the end of Golding's narrative, the conch crashes against the rock, "that token of preposterous time," symbolizing the end of an societal order on the island.  Also, according to Rosenfield, Piggy, a father figure, is also a symbol of the degeneration of boys from adults to animalistic savages when he, too, is dashed against the large, sharp rocks and the conch

exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist....Piggy fell forty feet....Then the sea breathed again in a long, slow sigh, the water boiled white and pink over the rock; and when it went, sucking back again, the body of Piggy was gone.

Because Golding based his narrative upon the Victorian novel, Coral Island, in which boys were stranded on an island, but were able to fight the natives there and be victorious over savagery, the island is used in Lord of the Flies without any natives to represent a type of Garden of Eden so that Golding can demonstrate that man, on his own, releases his savage impulses when the controls of society are not present; and, these savage impulses symbolized in the character of Jack, and his sadistic counterpart, Roger, "who carried death in his hands."

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