PENSYARAH EN.

ROHIMMI BIN NOOR

VIJAYEN A/L PONURAJOO

B10228
Literary analysis: Symbolism in Lord of the Flies, by William Golding

Symbolism - it gives deep shades of meaning to even the most mundane everyday
objects and events. In Sir William Golding's Lord of the Flies, symbolism is used at every turn
of every page, from the largest and most influential events, to something as small as a pair of
glasses. Piggy's specs represent intelligence and civilization, hope and security, but they also
mark the boys' gradual degeneration towards savagery.

However, the fate of these spectacles mirrors the fate of the boys during their descent
into savagery. During the confrontation between Jack and Ralph atop the mountain, after a ship
had passed when the fire was out, fighting ensues, and one of Piggy's lenses is shattered. This
simple act of destruction symbolized the shattering of decency and civilized actions. While not
completely gone, the destruction of civilization begins, and now the boys begin a downward
spiral to savagery. When Jack and his tribe splinters off of Ralph's group, and later raid Ralph's
camp for fire, Piggy's glasses are completely broken, symbolizing the complete loss of order,
government, and hope. The fire cannot be relit, and so any hope of rescue is dead. Chaos has
erupted on the island, and confusion and savagery run wild.

Piggy is an important character in William Golding's Lord of The Flies. The novel
follows a group of boys who crash land on a deserted island. At first, they believe island life is
a game; they believe that they will be rescued and will soon return to their normal lives. The
reality of the situation, however, is that the world outside of the island is embroiled in war.
Gradually, the island becomes a microcosm of the outside world serving as a snapshot of the
atrocities and evil going on outside of it. Using Piggy's physical attributes, mental
characteristics, and emotional maturity, Golding makes Piggy a symbol of authority,
democracy, and civilization. Piggy's character plays a major role because he serves as
Golding's personification of intelligent, rational thinking civilization; therefore, he is given
internal and external characteristics that make him a figure of pacifist authority.

Golding's symbolism is apparent in Piggy's physical features. The boys ostracize him
from the beginning because he is overweight, pale, asthmatic, and has a different accent. His
pale skin, regardless of how much sun he encounters, shows his deep rooted connection to
civilization. Size, athleticism, and physical appearance are indicators of status on the island, so
due to his physical limitations, he becomes a pariah among the boys. Though Piggy is the
obvious choice for the boys' leader, another better-looking athletic boy, Ralph, is chosen
instead. Piggy rules, behind the scenes, through Ralph because Ralph cannot stay composed in
pressing situations as Piggy can. Piggy is set apart further by his wispy hair. All of the boys'
hair grows longer except for Piggy who seems balding even at his young age. This gradual
difference makes Piggy seem like more of an older authority figure as the days go on and the
difference becomes more noticeable.
In addition, Piggy wears glasses. His handicap makes him seem older than he really is
to the reader, and with age comes implied wisdom. As the embodiment of order, Piggy is
logically the most emotionally and mentally equipped boy on the island. When all the other
boys believe there is a dangerous beast on the island, he is astute enough to realize that  a large
animal could not possibly sustain itself on the island. He tries to convey the message that there
is nothing to fear on the island: "I know there isn't no beast -- not with claws and all that, I
mean -- but I know there isn't no fear either" (page 84).
Continuing on, he makes the insightful point that the only things to be afraid on the
island of are the other boys themselves. He stays calm under pressure and thinks through
situations intelligently and perceptively; moreover, he is independent enough that he can exist
even as pariah on the island. All of the other boys constantly leave him alone to fend for
himself and take care of the young boys on the island. Evidently, his independence is a
principal factor that keeps him from degenerating into a blood thirsty savage as the rest of the
boys do by the middle of the novel. At the beginning of the boys' journey, he found the conch,
a shell that when blown brought all of the boys into meeting. This process allowed the conch to
represent order and democracy. Until his death, Piggy tries to maintain a sense of order
between the boys.
By the end of the novel, the island becomes divided, and Piggy's more democratic
group is in the minority. His glasses are stolen by the tribe of savages, and in an effort to foster
negotiate the return of his glasses, he visits their camp. Instead of visiting them with the
intention of violence, Piggy is a diplomat to the end trying to foster peace through discussion.
On his voyage he clings to the conch: the last symbol of order and peaceful decision on the
island. He arrives in their camp, but he is unable to persuade the savages' leader Jack to return
his stolen glasses. During a scuffle, Jack's savages, Golding's representation of an disordered
society, drop a boulder on Piggy. He is crushed -- killing him and shattering the conch.
Here, the boulder is the manifestation of a sudden, radical force. Piggy's being crushed
by a boulder symbolic of a sudden and radical breakdown of civilization. Civilization's death
fittingly, occurs simultaneously with the disintegration of the conch, the last symbol of order of
the island. Piggy's death marks the end of intellectualism on the island.
The novel is rife with objects that hold power over the story's characters. Each of the
objects in itself also symbolizes something; so thus, many symbols are also present throughout
the novel. These symbols all wield their power in different ways. At its basis, The Lord of the
Flies is a novel that shows the nuances of power and how the power is contained in symbols. It
also shows how a person can use the power contained in the symbols to control others. There
are several objects in the novel that are also symbols. One such symbol is that of the sow's
head.

The sow's head symbolizes fear of the unknown for the children on the island. Another
important object is the conch shell. It may be the most important symbolic item on the item
because it represents orderly power on the island. The dead parachutist does not symbolize a
type of power, but it does symbolize the fact that adults are also inherently evil. The last object
of symbolic importance is Piggy's pair of glasses. They are much fought over for they hold the
power of fire. This is a scientific power on an island without any other modern devices. To the
young boys the power of science is something mystical and unknown and thus easy to use as a
controlling device. All of these items represent something else, and the greatest number of
them represents a form of power.
The novel, The Lord of the Flies, is a story about power. The entire conflict of the book is
based on power. Ralph is the child who obtains power and Jack wishes to have this power.
Thus there is a conflict in the story that centres on the power that each person has but that the
power a person has over others. In the novel it is made obvious that the children have the
power to kill. They have the power to make decisions and the power to decide whether to make
decisions that are moral or immoral. The children, whom are the characters of the novel, have
the power to decide their own fates within a limited fashion. The story is also one in which the
power resides not only in the children, but within the symbols they surround themselves.
Although each child has power, they allow the power of the symbols supersede their own. In
the story the children who do not wish to have control over their own fate slowly give power to
the symbol. The symbol of the sow's head is an obvious example. The sow's head is nothing
more than the decapitated head of a pig, yet through their own superstitious whisperings, it
becomes a symbol of fear for them all. These powerful symbols are then used by others to
control those who have ceded their own power to the objects.

The novel has two main characters that can be considered leaders, Ralph and Jack.
These two characters also represent the main conflict of the story for all of the characters in the
novel. The conflict of the story is so closely related to the conflict between only two people
because of the fact that those two people use the power symbols to control the other characters.
Ralph is the first to use symbols to his advantage. The conch shell is a symbol of order and of
rules. In the beginning of the story, with the idea of rules and order prominent in their minds,
the children flock to the conch because it represents order that they are used to having but are
now without. The conch represents order and logical thought and thus is used to control the
children to great effect. As time passes, however, the memory of rules and order fade from the
children's minds. Rules are something that denies the children’s fun, thus rules become less
important. As order becomes less desirable to the children, they take back the power that they
had given to the conch as a symbol, until ultimately it is destroyed, showing the total disregard
for rules that the children have embraced. Jack, the other character vying for power within the
novel uses the power of fear to control others. He is a hunter, thus he already commands fear
from the other children, but he uses other symbols to convey this. After hunting and killing a
sow, Jack puts its decapitated head on a post stuck into the ground. Jack, before, had been
using the idea of a beast, perpetuated by the nighttime’s sighting of the dead parachutist to
instill fear in his followers. The posting of the sow's head is an offering to the beast and a
promise to all who oppose him. The fact that a real offering to the beast that most considered
fanciful is posted makes them also believes that the beast is real. This increases the children's
fear of the beast, which increases Jack's power as a supposed protector. The promise that the
sow's head represents is that of a stick sharpened on both ends, or death and decapitation for
one’s head to be put on a sharpened stake as a trophy. Jack controls the children’s fear of death
and thus controls them. The last symbol used for power is that of fire. Ralph uses the glasses to
start a fire, which is a necessity. The fire represents the wonders of an orderly society, thus the
fire has power. Jack knowing this steals the glasses in order to gain power for himself. He,
however, distorts the power into something mystical that only he controls.

The most basic idea that can be gleaned from reading The Lord of the Flies is that it is a
book about power. The power is something that all persons have until they willingly give it to
someone or something. In the novel, the characters surrender their power to symbols, which
are controlled by individuals. The story shows how people give their power to symbols and
thus to individuals and are then controlled by those individuals who posess the symbol. The
symbol of order is replaced with one of fear as a powerful idea. The novel shows how basic
civilized symbols are slowly replaced with distorted primal ones in the absence of an ultimate
or almost ultimate power. Unless some power is reserved by each individual, then those
individuals lose control of their own fates.