Literary Analysis: Lord of the Flies

GENERAL

1. A horrific plane crash sends a group of young British boys—youngest six and oldest twelve—stranded on an island with a dead pilot. The plane was evacuating the boys away from Britain during a raging war. Two boys, Ralph and Piggy, are found alone on the beach and discover a conch, which gives Ralph the idea to rally up the other boys that were on the plane with the conch. As the boys gather, they agree that Ralph will be their leader. Jack, a leader of the boys’ choir group, argues that he should be leader but Ralph compromises that he will be the leader of the hunting group to which Jack agrees. As the plot moves forward, Jack and his group of hunters begin to question Ralph’s authority as leader. Being the leader of a large group of boys proved to be difficult to Ralph as no one seemed to want to build a fire seriously as a way to contact a rescue. The boys start to grow nervous about a ‘monster’ hiding in the jungle and are convinced even more so when they stumble upon a dead man with a parachute draped over him, believing it was a deformed ape by how it was hunched over. (There was an airplane battle over the sleeping boys from which the dead man came from.) Jack’s bloodlust for killing pigs has increased and a chaotic revelry is thrown for their success. They had decapitated a pig and mounted the head on a stick as a sacrifice to the ‘monster’, which his pig is later defined as the Lord of the Flies. Simon, another innocent boy, discovers that the ‘monster’ is actually a dead man and that it was all their imagination. Simon, unfortunately, is killed by the boys that night when they believe him to be the monster. Jack forms his own tribe and leaves Ralph, Piggy, and a pair of twin boys to survive by themselves. Ralph and Piggy go to confront Jack. Jack and Ralph engage in a fight and Piggy is killed by one of the boys dismantling a boulder and letting it crush Piggy, shattering the conch. Ralph flees from the animalistic boys trying to kill him and Jack sets the island on fire, trying to smoke out Ralph’s hiding place in the jungle. Ralph stumbles upon a navy officer on the beach from which they were signaled by the fire and is so traumatized by the past events that he weeps. The other boys weep as well when they see that an adult is now amongst their midst. Their upsetting experience on the island was finally over.

 
2. The theme of the novel circles around the idea of a base of government and how we govern ourselves. William Golding had a most creative idea towards removing authoritative adults from a society that is ruled by preadolescents. The fact that they are preadolescents makes the situation even worse. It’s maintaining a civilized structure of living that makes it a challenge to these young boys. Most of them don’t even know how to take care of themselves with the youngest being around six years old. It’s easy to switch from living a life where rules were followed to living a life where freedom is put to extreme measures. We see these within the characters, too, where Ralph is all for civility and Jack is one who swells in power. That animalistic impulse still lies within those characters and are carried off when split apart from an organized society.

 
3. The author’s tone is daunting, suspenseful, and rather heart-rending. Speaking in third person, Golding really emphasizes his tone in important scenes that deal with symbolism or foreshadowing such as the death of characters. His suspenseful tone is used during Jack’s first hunt for a pig. The suspense of him killing the pig is forceful onto the readers when Jack finally strikes that blow or lowers the knife. The daunting tone reflects off of the symbolic pig’s head absolutely covered in flies. When the Lord of the Flies (pig) speaks to Simon, there is a very chilling feel to it that has the readers on edge. Plus, the imagery also captures that daunting tone. The heart-rending tone comes with the death of characters such as Piggy and Simon. Piggy’s death, especially, since the readers had a connection to that character and felt sympathy for Piggy’s struggles.


4. Symbolism: This really helped me understand the book with how Golding used symbolism to create foreshadowing, an establishment of the theme, and how it was used to move the plot. The conch is an excellent example of symbolizing a ground set of rules and how they are followed. It symbolizes order in society. “They obeyed the summons on the conch, partly because Ralph blew it, and he was big enough to be a link with the adult world of authority.” Pg. 50.

 Foreshadowing: I pointed out some foreshadowing that dealt with the deaths of Piggy and Simon. Simon began with the Lord of the Flies scene where the pig head mentioned having fun with Simon. This tells the reader that something horrible will happen with Simon. Also, in the beginning of chapter six, boulders begin rolling off the Castle Rock cliff, foreshadowing Piggy’s death.

 Imagery: Golding adds a lot of details to the imagery in nearly every scene. His descriptions of the island, the crash, the characters, and the monsters inside the island and the boys is detailed enough to place the reader into the story. This also really helps the reader picture the situation as if a painting is shown right in front of them. It’s a powerful message that Golding uses to his advantage in the book.

Simile: This device was mainly used when describing the scenery or when one of the characters was performing an action. It’s also one of the few devices that are easily pointed out in the story. Golding used many. “Ralph lolled in the water. Sleep enveloped him like the swathing mirages that were wrestling with the brilliance of the lagoon.” Pg. 9. “Inside was peacock water, rocks and weed showing as in an aquarium.” Pg. 26.  

 Personification: The readers get a feel of the animation happening with Golding’s device, personification. The inanimate objects come to life and it clarifies that each inanimate object has a feeling of life in them. “Clouds of birds rose from the tree-tops, and the something squealed and ran in the undergrowth.” Pg. 12.

 
CHARACTERIZATION

1. In the beginning of the story, Golding uses direct characterizations with the characters, Piggy and Ralph. Piggy was described as a short, fat boy with round glasses who is asthmatic. Ralph was described as a skinny boy with fare hair and a rather pale complexion. The indirect characterization comes with the character Jack. He describes him with direct characterization but then describes his personal character with indirect characterization. He describes Jack’s nature by how he acts when leading the slaughtering. My impression of Jack at the end was that he was: “You’re a beast and a swine and a bloody, bloody thief!” Pg. 117. It completely changed from innocence to a cold blooded murderer; a dictator who deals with too much power.

 
2. Golding’s diction and syntax is fairly simple to understand; simple and powerful to each character. His diction is fairly static throughout the book, but his intensity increases with certain characters. Simon is a good example when focusing on him. Golding writes him as an innocent character and plays around with how Simon speaks and the description of the character. They are nice and short sentences, but it conveys a message that Simon is more than likely going to be an important character later on when speaking of his innocence. Jack is a whole other story. He’s the antagonist of the story, which he is given detail to his actions and his dialogue is more demanding and lengthy than Simon’s. So Golding really expresses his characters through the change of diction.

 
3. The protagonist, Ralph, is pretty much static/ flat through the entire story because he has leadership that never wavers EXCEPT for in the scene when Simon is killed. Both Piggy and Ralph become caught up in the tribe’s animalistic nature of chants. They’re blind to the fact that the beast doesn’t exists because, even though they don’t contribute in the killing of Simon, they still believe that Simon was the monster when emerging from the bushes. They didn’t stop the tribe from killing Simon nor did they stop chanting along with the group. But, they’re behaviors became back on track after the traumatic realization that they had killed a close friend on the island. They still maintained that sense of civility.

 
4. I felt as though I had come back feeling like I had met a person. The character I had a connection to the most was Piggy. This mainly goes towards my childhood being fairly similar to Piggy’s and how similar we were. I was a weak link in elementary and junior high and was picked on by friends. But it was also how Golding wrote Piggy’s character. His quotes spoke to me every time he tried to say something worth saying. I became frustrated when no one would listen to Piggy except Ralph and Simon. I felt VERY emotional with the death of Piggy and I felt as though something detached from me personally. “How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper?”

 
Favorite quotes: “Sucks to you’re ass-mar!”

                           “Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!”

                           “Maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us.”