Preview

Essay- the Irony of the Ending of Lord of the Flies

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
557 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Essay- the Irony of the Ending of Lord of the Flies
Essay- The irony of the ending of the Lord of the Flies.

The ending of the novel "Lord of the Flies," was somewhat surprising. I was surprised, at least. Its very ironic how they are rescued and who they are rescued by. At this point in the novel, the boys are no longer acting like humans, but are savages. They fight for power, and hunt each other down like animals. Jack has taken control and has formed a tribe to hunt the pigs, and whoever wont follow his rules. They eventually start killing each other, and loose all sense of morals that they had before landing on this island. By the end of the novel, the boys have evolved into completely different people, with different beliefs and desires. It is very ironic how there only way off the island is a naval cruiser, and this fancy, neatly dressed officer comes to rescue them. The closing of the book begins with Ralph running from the savages during the manhunt where he trips, falls to the ground, and expects Jack and his inhuman tribe to attack him. To his surprise, he is not attacked, and he stands up to find himself facing a British naval officer. The savages shortly behind him ended up there as well, and were stunned into silence by this adult on their island. "He staggered to his feet, tensed for more terrors, and looked up at a huge, peaked cap. It was a white-topped cap, and above the green shade of the peak were a crown, an anchor, and gold foliage. He saw a white drill, epaulettes, a revolver, and a row of gilt buttons down the front of a uniform. A naval officer stood on the sand, looking down at Ralph in wary astonishment."(LoF p200). The attire of the boys and the officer also stand in stark contrast. The officer is dressed with a military neatness, with a clean, decorated uniform. The boys however are in need of haircuts, most of them are covered with clay, and they are probably wearing the tattered remains of shorts or pants. They are dirty, with bruises and cuts, and half starved; they are

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed."-Mahatma Gandhi. Everything man needs is right in front of them, but human nature drives them to be evil. Savagery and civilization is what the humans conscience battles. William Golding addresses this argument in the novel, Lord of the Flies, through an island of lost boys. They are strive to live civilized however, the evil inside begins to seep out, transforming them into savage hunters.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Suddenly, Ralph looks up to see a naval officer standing over him. The officer tells the boy that his ship has come to the island after seeing the blazing fire in the jungle. Jack’s hunters reach the beach and stop in their tracks upon seeing the officer. The officer matter-of-factly assumes the boys are up to, as he puts it, “fun and games.” When he learns what has happened on the island, the officer is disappointed, how could this group of boys, he asks—and English boys at that—have lost all reverence for the rules of civilization in so short a time? For his part, Ralph is…

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Lord of the Flies was a very interesting book. It was about these kids stuck on a island. The first boys to be on the island were Piggy and Ralph. They were just walking and talking about who they were and were they were. As they were walking Piggy found a shell. He was very happy to have found that shell he sounded it and told Ralph that they could use that to bring up others boys to where they were. When they were sounding it a lot of boys came out of the trees and came towards Ralph and Piggy and sat on the rocks. Ralph grabbed the shell out of Ralph’s hand and sounded it and then a group of boys where the last ones to come out. He asked where was the one that made that noise. Ralph and Jack both went towards him. The boy thought that…

    • 892 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ralph blows the conch and calls another meeting. By now, thank goodness, the choir boys have removed their cloaks.…

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pigg Piggy Chapter 1

    • 1146 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Ralph is introduced as being 'the boy with fair hair' (pg 7). One of the first things Ralph does is pull up his sock which symbolizes the idea that Ralph is still civilized and acts like he is still in a sophisticated society. Ralphs father was in the army, and made it a point to say that his father was going to rescue them. When Ralph was elected as chief, it was because he was oldest, and was said to have the physique of a boxer ‘he may make a boxer, as far as width and heaviness of shoulders went, but there was a mildness about his mouth and eyes that proclaimed no devil’ (pg 10).…

    • 1146 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lord of the Flies by William Golding has a plethora of literary techniques and strengths integrated within itself that separates it from other novels and work in tandem with the plot to form an enjoyable novel. A significant technique used in Lord of the flies is its multitude of motifs. Two of these many motifs include power and savagery and are brought up many times in the novel. The use of these literary techniques are to emphasize the insanity the boys on the island go through. In our pastiche we wrote an alternate ending to Lord of the flies if there was an adult figure arbitrarily inserted to temporarily offset the balance of power and insanity.…

    • 261 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Most people experience losing control at one time or another. This often leads them to feel powerless and unsure. In the first nine paragraphs of chapter 7 of Williams Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the protagonist, Ralph relates these feelings to the readers. Jack gaining power and the boys becoming uncivilized creates feelings of helplessness and fear in Ralph.…

    • 334 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel, where a group of young British boys are lost on an island after their plane crash lands. Throughout the novel William Golding utilization of literary devices are in place to reveal a theme of the novel, civilization and innocent are destroyed due to the savagery of the boys', desire for power, and fear of the unknown. William Golding utilizes three important literary devices throughout the novel, symbolism, of when the conch is destroyed civilization on the island is gone, foreshadowing the deaths of the boys on the island and irony as the civilize British boys turn savages.…

    • 1088 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The central theme of the Lord of the Flies is the influence of others. Each boy had to pick between a set of rules and morals to live by, dividing them into two groups. The conflict consisted of Civilization versus savagery. In one group the influence of Ralph was a sense of order and everyone lived by rules. The influence of good beliefs and values generated these boys from committing sinful crimes. In Jacks group, the boys were influenced by evil. The killing of animals empowered them to become sinful people. Jack would measure value in the group by ones immediate desire to kill coldblooded. To obtain authority you needed to act violently. These acts shaped how the boy’s mental state developed. Damaging the human they will grow up to be.…

    • 311 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Simon In Lord Of The Flies

    • 1522 Words
    • 7 Pages

    For quite some time throughout my reading of this novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding seemed to foreshadow a dark ending; the savagery of the human nature taking over the will of well-mannered thoughts and fundamentality of behavior with no return. Perhaps it was the characters’ slow transition into tribal lifestyle, the curiosity of Simon that led him to a horrific fatality, or even the death of an innocent. Within a multitude of instances, we see a slow transition from civilized manner to a terrible insanity and evil. The boys, young and naïve, attempt to be proper island wanderers and develop what seems to be a rough form of government. Ralph, the protagonist, symbolizes order and civility, while Jack, the obvious antagonist,…

    • 1522 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    A highly effective community is made up of people serving in different roles as a cohesive unit. If everyone has the same role, the community would not be as effective and productive as it is suppose to be. No one is perfect, meaning that everyone has their own strengths and weakness. For example, I am stronger in math, my strength and at times struggle in writing, my weakness. I believe that if we each use our strengths to improve on our weaknesses then, we ultimately make a community stronger as a shole. In the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses symbolism, conflict and evolution to portray Ralph as an immature young boy who develops into a civilized young man against all odds .…

    • 889 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Suspenseful. Imaginative. Powerful. Lord of the Flies is an extremely interesting story that presents and displays how many little boys who became stranded on an unknown island, came to be rescued and brought back to civilization. In the novel, Ralph, one of the stranded little boys, finds a symbolic conch shell that all of the boys treat as a sign to tell who is allowed to speak. The boys all try to prepare a large fire on the top of the mountain and maintain the flame so that if anyone passed by, they would be able to notice the smoke and rescue them. Also, towards the end of the story a beast comes into play that scares the boys so much that they start killing each other. All of these symbols have great…

    • 940 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lord of the Flies Essay

    • 1028 Words
    • 5 Pages

    What does it take for a group of civilized boys to be turned into inhumane, bloodthirsty savages? In William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, Jack is able to exploit the innermost evil in others through the means of psychological manipulation. With these tactics, he gains the support of his newfound tribe, and chaos breaks out on the island as a result. Jack manipulates the boys and turns them into a supportive tribe of savages by defying the conch, giving them the thrill of hunting, and using their fear of the beast against them.…

    • 1028 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lord of the Flies Essay

    • 1157 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Life and people are full of diversity and courage; however, the unknown can make young vulnerable minds similar and fearful in their reactions. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a group of once, young civilized English boys’ become fearful of an imagined beast. They fear a beast because of what they have let their imagination produce. Humans fear what is unknown. Piggy, Ralph and Jack are all uncertain as whether a beast really existed, and all showed signs of fear. Simon, on the other hand, knew the beast was all in their heads therefore he had nothing to be afraid of. As Piggy, Ralph and Jack are all sceptical, Simon remains true to his beliefs. These four examples explain the views of each character in the novel.…

    • 1157 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lord of the Flies Essay

    • 603 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Lord of the flies has been called “a fable in which the characters are symbols for abstract ideas,” and there are many ways in which the characters can be viewed. One way, for instance, is comparing them to Sigmund Freud’s theory of id, ego, and superego: the boys being like a metaphorical person, where Jack is the id, Ralph the ego, and Piggy the superego. It is an appropriate allegation because of the fact that id, ego, and superego all have specific traits that match those of these three characters.…

    • 603 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays