A CRITICAL ANALYSIS ON WILLIAM GOLDING'S LORD OF THE FLIES.

When viewing the atrocities of today's world on television, the starving children, the wars, the injustices,one cannot help but think that evil is rampant in this day and age. People in society must be aware that evil is not an external force embodied in a society but resides within each person. Man has both good qualities and faults. He must come to control these faults in order to be a good person. In the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding deals with this same evil which exists in all of his characters. With his mastery of such literary tool as structure, syntax, diction, point of view and presentation of character, Golding allows the reader to easily relate to his characters and explore the novel's main theme, that within a person there are forces of good and evil wich must becontrolled. Golding's novel has a "remarkably complete and solid structure"(Kinkead- Weekes and Gregor 15).With the exception of Ralf's dream, Golding' novel follows chronological order. It begins with the boys' arrival on the island. Through the chapters one to four, the tension rises between Jack and Ralf, the two leaders. The crisis is reached in chapter five,"Beast from Water", when Simon comes face to face with the personification of evil,The Lord of the Flies. The tension mounts continually as the story unfolds for "the structure and technique of Lord of the FlieJack > Quote 2[Jack] tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up."I went on. I thought, by myself"The madness came into his eyes again."I thought I might kill." (3.37-40)You say pot-ay-to; we say po-tah-toe. You say this is Jack's real nature, subdued by culture; we say that the island is eroding his true self. (Or the other way around; we haven't actually made up our minds.) What does Golding seem to think?Chapter 3Primitivity Jack > Quote 3[Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. (4.33)Jack is taking the whole "becoming one with your prey" thing a bit too literally. Here's he's practically morphing into an animal, with the kind of "bloodthirsty snarling" you'd associate with a man-eating tiger rather than a 12-year-old choir boy. Jack > Quote 2[Jack] tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up."I went on. I thought, by myself"The madness came into his eyes again."I thought I might kill." (3.37-40)You say pot-ay-to; we say po-tah-toe. You say this is Jack's real nature, subdued by culture; we say that the island is eroding his true self. (Or the other way around; we haven't actually made up our minds.) What does Golding seem to think?Chapter 3Primitivity Jack > Quote 3[Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. (4.33)Jack is taking the whole "becoming one with your prey" thing a bit too literally. Here's he's practically morphing into an animal, with the kind of "bloodthirsty snarling" you'd associate with a man-eating tiger rather than a 12-year-old choir boy. Jack > Quote 2[Jack] tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up."I went on. I thought, by myself"The madness came into his eyes again."I thought I might kill." (3.37-40)You say pot-ay-to; we say po-tah-toe. You say this is Jack's real nature, subdued by culture; we say that the island is eroding his true self. (Or the other way around; we haven't actually made up our minds.) What does Golding seem to think?Chapter 3Primitivity Jack > Quote 3[Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. (4.33)Jack is taking the whole "becoming one with your prey" thing a bit too literally. Here's he's practically morphing into an animal, with the kind of "bloodthirsty snarling" you'd associate with a man-eating tiger rather than a 12-year-old choir boy. Jack > Quote 2[Jack] tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up."I went on. I thought, by myself"The madness came into his eyes again."I thought I might kill." (3.37-40)You say pot-ay-to; we say po-tah-toe. You say this is Jack's real nature, subdued by culture; we say that the island is eroding his true self. (Or the other way around; we haven't actually made up our minds.) What does Golding seem to think?Chapter 3Primitivity Jack > Quote 3[Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. (4.33)Jack is taking the whole "becoming one with your prey" thing a bit too literally. Here's he's practically morphing into an animal, with the kind of "bloodthirsty snarling" you'd associate with a man-eating tiger rather than a 12-year-old choir boy. Jack > Quote 2[Jack] tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up."I went on. I thought, by myself"The madness came into his eyes again."I thought I might kill." (3.37-40)You say pot-ay-to; we say po-tah-toe. You say this is Jack's real nature, subdued by culture; we say that the island is eroding his true self. (Or the other way around; we haven't actually made up our minds.) What does Golding seem to think?Chapter 3Primitivity Jack > Quote 3[Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. (4.33)Jack is taking the whole "becoming one with your prey" thing a bit too literally. Here's he's practically morphing into an animal, with the kind of "bloodthirsty snarling" you'd associate with a man-eating tiger rather than a 12-year-old choir boy. Jack > Quote 2[Jack] tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up."I went on. I thought, by myself"The madness came into his eyes again."I thought I might kill." (3.37-40)You say pot-ay-to; we say po-tah-toe. You say this is Jack's real nature, subdued by culture; we say that the island is eroding his true self. (Or the other way around; we haven't actually made up our minds.) What does Golding seem to think?Chapter 3Primitivity Jack > Quote 3[Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. (4.33)Jack is taking the whole "becoming one with your prey" thing a bit too literally. Here's he's practically morphing into an animal, with the kind of "bloodthirsty snarling" you'd associate with a man-eating tiger rather than a 12-year-old choir boy. Jack > Quote 2[Jack] tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up."I went on. I thought, by myself"The madness came into his eyes again."I thought I might kill." (3.37-40)You say pot-ay-to; we say po-tah-toe. You say this is Jack's real nature, subdued by culture; we say that the island is eroding his true self. (Or the other way around; we haven't actually made up our minds.) What does Golding seem to think?Chapter 3Primitivity Jack > Quote 3[Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. (4.33)Jack is taking the whole "becoming one with your prey" thing a bit too literally. Here's he's practically morphing into an animal, with the kind of "bloodthirsty snarling" you'd associate with a man-eating tiger rather than a 12-year-old choir boy. Jack > Quote 2[Jack] tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up."I went on. I thought, by myself"The madness came into his eyes again."I thought I might kill." (3.37-40)You say pot-ay-to; we say po-tah-toe. You say this is Jack's real nature, subdued by culture; we say that the island is eroding his true self. (Or the other way around; we haven't actually made up our minds.) What does Golding seem to think?Chapter 3Primitivity Jack > Quote 3[Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. (4.33)Jack is taking the whole "becoming one with your prey" thing a bit too literally. Here's he's practically morphing into an animal, with the kind of "bloodthirsty snarling" you'd associate with a man-eating tiger rather than a 12-year-old choir boy. Jack > Quote 2[Jack] tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up."I went on. I thought, by myself"The madness came into his eyes again."I thought I might kill." (3.37-40)You say pot-ay-to; we say po-tah-toe. You say this is Jack's real nature, subdued by culture; we say that the island is eroding his true self. (Or the other way around; we haven't actually made up our minds.) What does Golding seem to think?Chapter 3Primitivity Jack > Quote 3[Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. (4.33)Jack is taking the whole "becoming one with your prey" thing a bit too literally. Here's he's practically morphing into an animal, with the kind of "bloodthirsty snarling" you'd associate with a man-eating tiger rather than a 12-year-old choir boy.s is one of revelation" (Kinkead-Weekes and Gregor 22).The climax is reached shortly after the shattering of the conch and Piggy's death, when the boys attempt to kill Ralf. After this the story quickly comes to an end with the arrival of the naval officer. Thus the story follows the relatively common path of exposition, rising action, crisis, climax and falling action.Golding's skilful use of syntax is also quite common. He uses long periodic sentences when describing of the peaceful coral island, shadowed with greens and purples, and shorter sentences when describing moments of violence or high tension. For example, for the first pig's death, the author uses dashes to create stress. During the sow's death, he uses medium length sentences, dissected by commas to form shorter phrases. Towards the end of the novel, when Ralf is chased, commas are again employed. Here, Golding makes use of his shortest sentences, even using sentence fragments. He also uses shorter paragraphs. This particular use of syntax creates much tension.Golding also creates tension with the use of specific words. Many are connotative and therefore create a story abundant in meaning and symbolism. Golding uses colours such as pink to symbolize particular things such as innocence, piglets and the island. The word yellow makes the reader think of the sun, enlightenment and Ralf; the words black and red bring to mind evil, blood and Jack. With the use of words the author also creates the novel's own private symbols. The conch comes to symbolize authority, democracy and order. Upon the mentioning Piggy's glasses, images of insight and reason come to mind.With this highly connotative language, Golding creates many contrasts. He compares the dazzling beach's "pink granite" (Golding 12), green feathered palm trees and endless sand (Golding 10) to the "darkness of the forest" (Golding 10) full of "broken trunks" (Golding 10), "cables of creepers" (Golding 28), and dense vegetation. He also compares the day's "torrid sun" (Golding 176) to the night which makes everything as "dim and strange as the bottom of the sea" (Golding 62). The lagoon's security and the dangerous open sea are also contrasted when Golding qualifies them as "still as a mountain lake" (Golding 10), "dark blue" (Golding 31) and "deep sea" (Golding 62). Golding also uses cacophonous words such as "dark", "Jack", "broken", "torrid", "coarse" and "splintered" to describe bad things and euphonious words such as "feathers", "glittering fish" and "Ralf" to describe more peaceful things. Although Golding's language is informal, perhaps even colloquial and at times "so reticent as to be almost self-effacing" (Moody 45), he is capable of carrying the reader to his pink coral island where he adeptly narrates the story of these little boys and their losing battle against evil.The story is mainly told from a third person omniscient view. This allows the narrator to follow any of the boys anywhere. This unbiased and objective method also distances the reader as to allow him to judge the boys' actions. Towards the end of the novel, when Ralf is being hunted down by the other boys, the point of view occasionally slips to third person limited. As seen in the following passage, the narrator transmits Ralf's thoughts which are in third person:"Break the line.\ A tree.\ Hide, and let them pass.\...\ Hide was better than a tree because you had a chance of breaking the line if you were discovered.\ Hide, then." (Golding 217).This pulls the reader in and enables him to feel Ralf's fear, it also creates tension.Another important part of Golding's technique as an author is character presentation. Golding does this first through simple descriptions and then describing the reader to observe the characters in action. Regarding the characters Golding creates, each represents one side of human nature. Ralf stands for common sense, Jack for power and love of destruction, Roger for the desire to torture, Piggy for intellectualism and maturity, Simon for piety and Samneric stand for the desire to please and crowd mentality. All these characteristics are part of human nature and must be controlled. Jack gains too much of a thirst for power; this proves dangerous. The same thing happens when Samneric try too much to please.The element of control is a reoccurring motif in the novel. For example, the fire which can cook food, provide warmth and alert the passing ships can also become life- threatening when not controlled. Likewise, a person must learn to control himself or the evil which exist in all will surface and have detrimental effects. "life on the island ... only imitate[s] the larger tragedy in which the adults of the outside world attempt to govern themselves reasonably, and end[s] in the same game of hunt and kill" (Baker 23).In the novel, a loss of control occurs, the evil within emerges and many people are killed. Though his excellent use of form, sentence structure, diction, point of view and presentation of character William Golding makes the reader aware that "at every point, ... much more than this story is being told" (Kinkead-Weekes and Gregor 15) and that "a clearly focused and coherent body of meaning is crystallizing out of every episode" (Kinkead-Weekes and Gregor 15).Lord of the Fliesenables the reader to comprehend that the "devil rises, not out of pirates and cannibals and such alien creatures, but out of the darkness of man's heart" (Hynes 16).Works cited Baker, James R. "Why It's No Go." Critical Essays on William Golding. Ed. James R. Baker.Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1988. Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. London: Faber and Faber, 1958. Hynes, Samuel. "William Golding's Lord of the Flies." Critical Essays on William Golding. Ed.James R. Baker. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1988. Kinkead-Weekes, Mark, and Ian Gregor. William Golding: a critical study. London: Faber and Faber, 1967 Moody, Philippa. Golding: Lord of the Flies, a critical commentary. London: Macmillan, 1964.

The ConchSymbolism, Imagery, AllegoryPiggy and Ralph spot a conch and decide to use it to call a meeting. All right! Island society is off to a good start. The boys impose a "rule of the conch" on themselves, deciding that no one can speak unless he's holding the conch. As a representative of law and order, the conch helps Ralph get elected: "The being that had blown that, had sat waiting for them on the platform with the delicate thing balanced on his knees, was set apart" (1.240).Even Jack respects the conch. After he fails to stage a coup, he "laid the conch with great care in the grass at his feet" (8.74). He doesn't throw it or smash it; he sets it down carefully. He may not want to play by the rules, but he still respects the rules.At the same time, the conch reminds us that the tools of power are, well, fake. Crowns and flags are no more meaningful than this random shell that Ralph spots in the grass. It's the meaning people give them that matters. Rules are only powerful if people agree on them, and that's why Ralph refuses to blow the conch when he knows that things are starting to break down: "If I blow the conch and they don't come back; then we've had it. We shan't keep the fire going. We'll be like animals. We'll never be rescued" (5). Because he doesn't blow the conch, its power holds.But finally, the conch is broken. Surprise, surprise: it's broken when the brutal Roger pushes a rock over a cliff. (And we mean brutal; check out his "Character Analysis.") When the conch is broken, Jack runs forward screaming that now he can be chief. With no conch, power is once again up for grabsand Jack is feeling grabby.One last thing: the conch is definitely associated with Ralph, but it's also associated with Piggy. Piggy's the one who recognizes it and knows how to blow it; he's the one who keeps returning to its power; and they both die at the same time. Weird, right? Any ideas?The FireSymbolism, Imagery, AllegoryFrom the very beginning of the novel, Ralph is determined to keep a signal fire going, in case a ship passes near to the island. That's all well and good, until the first signal fire the boys light begins burning out of control, and at least one boy is missing (read: burned up). As Piggy tells Jack, "You got your small fire all right" (2.210). The fire thus becomes a symbol, paradoxically, of both hope of rescue and of destruction.Ironically, it is because of a fire that Jack lights at the end of the novelin his attempt to hunt and kill Ralphthat the boys are rescued. And it makes sense. If the boys' world is just a symbol for the real world, then they're not being rescued at all; they're just going on to a larger scale of violenceto grow up into soldiers getting sent off to war. Hence, rescue equals destruction.The GlassesSymbolism, Imagery, AllegoryWhile the boys on the island are busy stripping naked to hunt pigs with sharpened sticks, there's still one symbol of advancement, innovation, and discovery: Piggy's glasses.On the one hand, the glasses are a pretty simple symbol. They're intended for looking through, and looking = vision; vision = sight, and sight = a metaphor for knowledge. Piggy knows things the other boys don't, like how to use the conch, and the necessity for laws and order. When the boys take his glasses, he can't see anything. "Seeing" is Piggy's greatest attribute. It's the one reason the boys don't ostracize him completely; it's the one way he's useful. Without his glasses, he's uselessand the world he represents is useless, too.At the beginning of theirOutward Bound adventure, the boys think starting a fire is a great idea, but they're stumped about how to do it. Jack mumbles something aboutrubbing two sticks together, but the fact is the boys just aren't wilderness-savvy enough to do this. So, they rely on a remaining relic of their old world. When the glasses break, that's one more link to civilization gone. Check out how it's described:The chief led them, trotting steadily, exulting in his achievement. He was a chief now in truth; and he made stabbing motions with his spear. From his left hand dangled Piggy's broken glasses.(10.296-302)Dangling and broken, these glasses are being direly misused. They're no longer a symbol of reason and smarts; they're a symbol of just how far from civilization the boys have come.The PighuntsSymbolism, Imagery, AllegoryWe'll let Golding start us off:Here, struck down by the heat, the sow fell and the hunters hurled themselves at her. This dreadful eruption from an unknown world made her frantic; she squealed and bucked and the air was full of sweat and noise and blood and terror []. The spear moved forward inch by inch and the terrified squealing became a high-pitched scream. Then Jack found the throat and the hot blood spouted over his hands. The sow collapsed under them [].At last the immediacy of the kill subsided. They boys drew back, and Jack stood up, holding out his hands."Look."He giggled and flicked them while the boys laughed at his reeking palms. Then Jack grabbed Maurice and rubbed the stuff over his cheeks . . . (8.191-196)We talk about this scene in the "Primitivity" quotes, but it's definitely worth look at twice. This pighuntand the other onessymbolize man's capacity for destruction and violence. In their bloodlust, these nice British boys become vicious monsters. It's not about having meat to eatit's about exerting power over the helpless animal. Many critics describe this as a rape scene, with the excitement coming partly from the blood and partly from their newly emerging feelings of sexuality. (Also, the pig is a nursing femaleso it's almost as if the boys are killing their own mothers. Pretty grim.)Later, the boys act out this pighunt over and over, in a sort of play-acting ritual that takes a horrifying turn when Simon is beaten to death by a mob of excited boys. If you ask us, these hunts might be a little too real to be just a symbol.Ralph's HairSymbolism, Imagery, AllegoryWe know the hair has to be a big deal, because the very first words of the novel are, "The boy with fair hair lowered himself down" (1.1). And it just keeps growing. Here's a small sampling of what that "idiot hair" (8) gets up to: Ralph's eyes "yearned beneath the fringe of hair" (6); "He would like to have a pair of scissors and cut this hairhe flung the mass backcut this filthy hair right back to half an inch (7.2); "His hair was full of dirt and tapped like the tendrils of a creeper" (12.1). Trust us, there's more.In particular, Ralph is constantly playing with that hair. He "pushes" his hair off of his facetwelve timesin the novel. Doesn't sound like that many? It is. If Golding takes the trouble to describe a character does something twelve timesin twelve chaptersbelieve us, it's meaningful. And what it means is savagery. Ralph's growing hair is a symbol for the gradual breakdown of law and order. It's a reminder of just how far he is from civilization.Golding isn't exactly saying, "Cut your hair, you dirty hippy," but he's close.ClothingSymbolism, Imagery, AllegoryClothing is another relic of the old world that falls by the wayside in this new one. Clothes can be ominous, as when Jack and his choir boys appear to be one long, dark creature as they travel in a pack wearing their black choir robes at the beginning. At first, the boys need to wear their clothing to avoid getting sunburned (meaning theyre not yet ready for the full island lifestyle), but theyre soon running around in loin-cloths or less, their skin and their minds having adapted to the surroundings. We even see Ralph go from the fair boy to being downright swarthy. Change is in the wind, as is a dead parachuting man from the skies above.AllegorySymbolism, Imagery, AllegoryThe Lord of the Fliescould be read as one big allegorical story. Anallegoryis a story with a symbolic level of meaning, where the characters and setting represent, well, other things, like political systems, religious figures, or philosophical viewpoints. Let's try a sample: The island represents the whole world. Ralph's conch-led Parliament represents democratic government. Jack's tribalism represents autocratic government. Piggy represents the forces of rationalism, science, and intellectwhich get ignored at society's peril. Simon represents a kind of natural morality.See how it's done? Of course, you could argue with this breakdown. Maybe Simon represents the religious side of humanity; maybe Jack represents cruelty, or maybe Roger does. But the point is that they're not fully developed and rounded characters so much as they are symbols.

The only time we pull out of the allegory is at the very end of the novel, when the other "real" world breaks through the imaginary barrier around the island. Yet this is also the moment when the real question of the allegory hits home: who will rescue the grownups?The BeastSymbolism, Imagery, AllegoryThe beast is easy enough: it represents evil and darkness. But does it represent internal darkness, the evil in all of our hearts, even golden boys like Ralph? Or does it represent an external savagery that civilization can save us from?Now You See ItAt first, the beast is nothing more than a product of the boys' imaginations. The smaller boys are afraid of things they see at night; rather than be blindly afraid of The Great Unknown, they give their fear a name and a shape in their minds. You can't defeat a "nothing," but you can hunt and kill a "something." (It's kind of like howVoldemortwas a lot scarier before we saw him asRalph Fiennes.)And then an actual "something" does show up: the dead parachuting man, who seems to come in response to Ralph's request for a "sign" from the adult world. It's ironic that the best the adults can come up with is a man dead of their own violence: maybe the beast isn't just confined to the island.Now You Don'tAnd now we start getting some real insight into the beast. Piggy basically says the beast is just fear of the unknown: "I know there isn't no beastnot with claws and all that, I meanbut I know there isn't no fear, either" (5.99). Simon, on the other hand, insists that the beast is "only us" (5.195). Well, it is: it's a person that fell from the sky. When the twins list off the horrible attributes of the creature they saw, they reveal that it has both "teeth" and "eyes"; Ralph and Jack see it as a giant ape. So the "beast" is a man-who-isn't, the animal side in all of us.But even that isn't quite what Simon means. He's talking about the beast being the darkness that is inside each and every one of us. If this is true, then, as the Lord of the Flies later suggests, it is absurd to think that the beast is something "you could hunt or kill" (8.337). If it's inside all of us, not only can't we hunt it, but we can never see it, never give it form, and never defeat it.

Body PaintSymbolism, Imagery, AllegoryThere's a reason (some) women put on more makeup when they're going on a job interview or a first dateand those neat-looking black stripes under football players' eyes are more effective at lookingawesomethan guarding against the sun.Jack (duh) is the first one to pretty himself up, and he does it because he figures out that his pig-prey keeps spotting him: "They see me, I think," he says: "Something pink, under the trees" (4.2). And so he gets the bright idea to paint his face, "dazzle paint. Like things trying to look like something else" (4.24).But the paint turns out to be more than camouflage. It doesn't just make Jacklooklike something else (say, part of the forest); it actually makes him into something else. It makes him into a savageand then the chief. When his face is finished, "the mask was a thing of its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness" (4.34). With the paint on his face, Jack isn't choir-leader Jack anymore; he's a savage ready to be chief.And Jack isn't the only one who has an inner savage. Eventually almost all the boys paint their faces, too. Ralph and his tiny band of still-civilized boys know that it's just paint, but that doesn't change its power. When they plan to go take Piggy's glasses back from Jack, Eric hesitates: "But they'll be painted! You know how it is." And everyone does: "They understand only too well the liberation into savagery that the concealing paint brought" (11.66).So there you have it. Golding isn't being tricky with this symbol; paint "liberates" the boys into savagery, freeing them to act in a way that schools, parents, and policemen have never let them. In other words, the paint represents the savage within. It doesn'tdisguisethe boys' true nature; it reveals it.

WoundsSymbolism, Imagery, AllegoryFrom the moment the boys land on the island, we begin to see signs of destruction. Over and over we are told of the "scar" that the plane leaves in the greenery (1.3). The water they bathe in is "warmer than blood" (1). The boys leave "gashes" in the trees when they travel (1). The lightning is a "blue-white scar" and the thunder "the blow of a gigantic whip," later a "sulphurous explosion" (9).If you're trying to answer the big question of whether the boys are violent by nature or are made violent by their unfortunate situation, you could argue that (1) because the island/nature is already so violent (think the thunder and lightning), the boys couldn't help but become part of its savagery when they arrived; or that (2) the boys are bringers of destruction, ruining the island paradise.Us? We'd like to go with option 1, but we're pretty sure Golding wants us to pick option 2.Lord of the Flies Theme of PrimitivityIf well-brought-up British boys become violent savages when left without supervision, maybe people really are just violent savages, covered up in clothes and caps. Or maybe justsomepeople are violent savages (*coughRogercough*). Either way,Lord of the Fliesasks us whether that primitivism is inferioror if it's our natural and rightful state, and if it's not a little more honest than the clean, "trim" British navy, pretending to be all noble while fighting its own gruesome battles. It sounds like there's a little bit of the beast in all of us.Oh, and did you notice that "savage" is associated with coconuts and pig-killingi.e., the life of a Pacific Islander? Golding is a man of his time, which means he's pretty casual about the racism that elevates Anglo "civilized" superiority. Sure, he questions whether Westerners are really all that civilized, but he doesn't question whether "savages" are really all that savage. Just something to keep in mind.Questions About Primitivity1. How does Piggy justify or explain Simon's death? Does he end up convincing himself that he's not really responsible for it?2. What is the most primitive, savage act committed inLord of the Flies? What makes it so primitive or savage? (And doesn't it say something about the novel that this is a tough choice?)3. Whose fault is it that Simon and Piggy are killed? Is there a difference here between being at fault and being responsible for it?4. Who is the most savage character on the island? (Besides Roger.) Who is the most "civilized"? How do we know the difference?5. Does Golding ever question what it means to be "civilized" and "savage," or is he pretty comfortable with the categories?Chew on ThisTry on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devils advocate.By having Ralph and Piggy help kill Simon, Golding suggests that we all have something primitive in us.InLord of the Flies, "primitive" and "savage" are always associated with negative characteristics, and "civilization" and "Britain" are always associated with positive characteristics.Lord of the Flies Theme of CivilizationIf some adult has ever snapped at you to be "civilized," then you probably know that "civilized" ends up referring to all kinds of arbitrary things: get your elbows off the table; say "please" and "thank you"; don't chew with your mouth open; don't flick spitballs at your sister. You know. Being "civilized" usually meansnotdoing what comes naturally. At least, that's howLord of the Fliesseems to see it. What comes naturally is running around slaughtering pigs in war paint; and what's civilized is having names, addresses, meetings, and elected leaders. But those arbitrary markings of civilization might be the only things that make life worth living.Questions About Civilization1. Are Ralph and Piggy the only defenders of civilization on the island? What does "civilization" mean to them?2. Does Ralph end up giving up on civilization by the end?3. What are the differences between "savagery" and civilization? And is "savagery" actually the opposite of civilization? If not, then what is?Lord of the Flies Theme of InnocenceThe boys ofLord of the Fliesare stranded on the island at just the right age (between six and twelve, roughly) to drop the idealism of youth and face the real world. How convenient. And what better place to do so than an uninhabited island free of rules, restrictions, and adults? Their real world is less the soul-killing drudgery of a 9-5 job, property taxes, and a baby who won't sleep through the night than the savagery of untamed human naturebut it's a loss of innocence all the same, when we (and the kids) realize that there's nothing innocent about childhood, after all. The novel ends with its main character, Ralph, weeping for "the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart."Questions About Innocence1. At what point in the novel does Ralph start thinking that mankind is inherently evil? Do other characters come to the same conclusion?2. Are the terms "mankind" and "man's heart" used interchangeably in this novel? What might be the difference between the two terms?3. When Ralph talks about the "darkness of man's heart," is this a cop-out? Do you think it's easier for Ralph to think man is inherently evil than realize that all the boys, including Ralph, have chosen to be violent and hurtful?4. Is Golding suggesting that children aren't actually innocent?Lord of the Flies Theme of Rules and OrderBe honest. If you woke up tomorrow and every adult on the planet had vanished, what would you do? (For the adults out there: what if you woke up and every police officer and credit rating bureau on the planet had vanished?) Would you dutifully get out of bed, brush your teeth, and head to school to try to organize the remaining kids into a democratic society? Or would you turn on the TV, break out the Hot Cheetos, and have aHalomarathon (assuming the power grid was still working)?Yeah, we thought so.Cheetleisn't exactly war paint, but Golding's point holds: humans are basically corrupt and inherently evil. Rules and order keep people from their true, violent natures.Lord of the Fliestells us that, as soon as you put people outside of a system with punishments and consequences, they'll get busy destroying themselves. Rules may seem pointless, but they're the only things keeping us alive.Questions About Rules and Order1. Ralph's attempted system of law lasts about five minutes before breaking down. Does Jack take over with anarchy, or with his own system of laws? Is anarchy really just another system, no different than any other arbitrary set of values?2. What makes the system of laws disintegrate on the island? Whose fault is it?3. Sam and Eric teeter between Ralph's orderly camp and Jack's rebellious one. Are they good, law-abiding guys, or do they just end up being bad guys?4. Are there any "good guys" on the island? Or are there really any "bad guys?" Is there such thing as good vs. bad at all? Or are there just humans, and that's how we are, and we should all stop passing judgment?Lord of the Flies Theme of FearIn 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, new president of the United States, said that the "only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Okay, it's a little more eloquent than Piggy's "I know there isn't no fear," but the point is basically the same: the most dangerous thing on this planet is probably fear, especially fear of the unknown. (Need us to be a little more literal? TheCold Warwas a war of fear: each side was so afraid of the other starting nuclear war that they built up their nuclear capacity, until the entire world could have been blown away if someone's trigger finger had just jerked.) The boys inLord of the Fliesmight be afraid of the beast, but that fear turns out to be more dangerous than any beast could possibly be. What they don't know is that they should really be afraid of each otherand of themselves.Questions About Fear1. What is "the unknown" inLord of the Flies? Are there any "knowns" that the boys fearlike starving, or never being rescued?2. What is Simon afraid of?3. What do the littluns really fear when they talk about the beast? At what point in the novel do the boys fully accept the reality of the beast, and what is the catalyst?Lord of the Flies Theme of PowerCongratulations! You've just been elected student body president. What's your first movegetting the mystery meat out of the school lunches, or staking your claim to the best parking spot? InLord of the Flies, we learn that absolute power corrupts absolutelybut limited power might end up making leaders better. This is the difference between Ralph, who gets more mature in his role as chief, and Jack, who getssavage. Let's make this really basic: if Ralph represents a democratic society ruled by power for the sake of law and order, then Jack represents anautocraticsociety governed by power for the sake of power. InLord of the Flies, the desire for power breaks the boys' fragile civilization, causes strife and competition, and ends up destroying the pristine jungle.Questions About Power1. Why do the boys follow Jack's lead more readily than they do Ralph's? How are Jack's power tactics different than Ralph's?2. What's the point of having power on a deserted island, anyway? For Ralph? For Jack? For Roger?3. Ralph seems to realize that with great power comesgreat responsibility. Does this mean that Jack, by not taking real responsibility, isn't actually chief?Lord of the Flies Theme of IdentityHalloween is a lot tamer than it was when peopledressed up to scare away ghosts, but the idea is the same: disguising yourself lets you get away with things that you can't do in your Levis and American Apparel hoody. The boys inLord of the Fliesaren't dressing up assexy Freddy Krueger, but they're still disguising themselves. They begin painting their faces with clay so the pigs won't see them, but the paint quickly becomes a way for them to feel better about their atrocious acts. With the paint on, they no longer have names or identities of their own; they're nameless creatures that kill and murder without consequence. Without a "self" to control, there's no need to control themselves.Questions About Identity1. What does the face-painting have to do with the boys becoming more violent? Does it happen before or after the boys start to become more "savage" and "primitive"?2. Are the boys reverting to their true identities on the island, or leaving their true identities behind as they become more primitive?3. How does Simon identify the pig's head? What does he mean when he thinks that the head is "the Lord of the Flies?" Does he even know?Lord of the Flies Theme of ReligionLord of the Fliescan be read, at least in part, as a religious allegory. It features the character Simon as a Christ-figure who is killed by the other boys. Following this train of thought, the island can be seen as the Garden of Eden, before it was corrupted by mankind and his evil activities (as represented by the beast) (the snake-thing). On a less complex level, there are many generally religious or superstitious images in the novel: Jack as the god, garlanded and sitting on a log as he presides over his feast, the name theLordof the Flies, the rituals that the boys engage in as they replay the pig hunts over and over, and the sacrifice that they leave for the beast. The pig head, impaled on a stake, seems to be a kind of god itself. Scholars disagree as to whether the novel argues for Christianity and civilization, in opposition to primitive rituals, or whetherLord of the Fliescriticizes any kind of religion, organized or no.Questions About Religion1. If Simon can be seen as a Christ-figure inLord of the Flies,what Biblical characters might Ralph and Jack be compared to?2. What is the difference between religion and superstition inLord of the Flies?3. Is Simon aware of all the religious symbolism that we claim hes associated with?Lord of the Flies Theme of Wisdom and KnowledgeKnowledge inLord of the Fliesis more about awareness and wisdom than anything else. There are certain important truths that some characters are privy to and others are not. The characters that are in the know seem to have possession of these truths innately, as though by some spiritual means. The boys left in the dark are simply at odds with their more savvy counterparts; they fail to understand these wiser children (like Simon) and instead of trying to learnfromthem, violently lash outatthem. It seems, then, that the wisest boys are sacrificed, made martyrs for the very key knowledge they possess. The irony is that, by killing these knowing boys, the nave characters are keeping themselves in the dark.Questions About Wisdom and Knowledge1. Whos the most intelligent boy on the island? Who is the wisest? Whats the difference?2. How do the boys feel about Simon? Are they fearful? Confused? Intimidated?3. What do the boys learn during their island getaway?

Lord of the Flies Theme of YouthThe island is strictly pre-teen, with no messy hormones to make things even worse. Maybe some of the boys have peach fuzzwe bet Jack doesbut in general, these are little boys playing little boy games. Only the games aren't so innocent.Lord of the Fliesasks a crucial question: are kids really innocent, or do even six-year-olds have the beast inside? On the one hand, it's hard to saywe only get to know the biguns, so it's possible that the six-year-olds are still innocent. On the other hand, everyone eats the pig, and everyone helps kill Simon. It's not looking good for human nature.Questions About Youth1. Are the children innocent? Are they corrupted by the island and their situation, or do they bring their own darkness?2. Has Ralph grown up by the end of the novel? Or does weeping show that he's still a child?3. Which characters act the most like adults? What does "adulthood" seem to mean? Jack > Quote 2[Jack] tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up."I went on. I thought, by myself"The madness came into his eyes again."I thought I might kill." (3.37-40)You say pot-ay-to; we say po-tah-toe. You say this is Jack's real nature, subdued by culture; we say that the island is eroding his true self. (Or the other way around; we haven't actually made up our minds.) What does Golding seem to think?Chapter 3Primitivity Jack > Quote 3[Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. (4.33)Jack is taking the whole "becoming one with your prey" thing a bit too literally. Here's he's practically morphing into an animal, with the kind of "bloodthirsty snarling" you'd associate with a man-eating tiger rather than a 12-year-old choir boy.