How Does Golding Use Language In Lord Of The Flies

LOST OF WORDS
How has Golding used silence and language to enhance the story? Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies ’ is a novel where silence and language is used as a medium to communicate among the boys on the island. Language is used as a form of civilization but as the days go by the language starts to depreciate person by person along with the need of civilization. Language and silence are also used to foretell future events in the novel. ‘The conch was silent.’ Here Golding uses irony to show how the conch, the loudest material on the island, could be silent and be ‘forgotten’ at one point o time. The conch could symbolically represent the boys on the island as they being humans could yet become savages. The silence of the jungle portrays the evil among the hidden creatures in the forest. Beasts that could take over you entire soul and turn you into someone else. ‘The beast is within you’ is an absurd yet truthful line for the boys on the island. Golding illustrates a juxtaposition for silence. Silence at times is as ‘calm and cool like the waves in the sea’ but at times ‘more oppressive than the heat’ After every epiphanic moment in the novel there is a huge pause of silence. ‘The great rock loitered, poised and smashed a deep hole into the forest. The forest shook like an enraged monster
and then he island was still.’ The rock foreshadows the dead parachutist who ‘falls strikes and turns over’. The forest shaking as a monster pre empts that when the parachutist does strike forestland it will create havoc among the children but in turn everything will be silent again. This is a way in which language and silence are used to foretell future events. ‘Nobody knows where we are. We will be here for a long time. The silence was complete. You could hear the fetch and miss of piggy’s breathing.’ Nobody knew where they were as they were on an unknown island and the silence became so uncomfortable and creepy that one could hear piggy’s breath. ‘As if someone is behind you all the time. They were silent again.’ In the ‘fearless’ forest one would be so scared that you would feel like a ‘beast’ is following you. Therefore you would keep quiet. ‘Simon,”I think you’ll get back alright.” For a moment nothing more was said.’ This momentary silence symbolically illustrates the survival of Ralph on the island. It foregrounds the end of the book where Ralph escapes the doors of death by just a few minutes. Golding uses silence to symbolically represent the evil among the boys and the forest. ’Roger a furtive boy ,kept to himself an inner intensity of avoidance and secrecy. He muttered his name and remained silent again.’ Roger was the most evil from all the boys. He ‘hurled the rock’ killing Piggy. He kept to himself most of the time as he was always ’intently watching at the littleluns.’ His evilness is brought about by his silence. Here silence becomes threatening. Golding usage of language brings out the right emotion of hatred and evilness in Roger. Golding uses silence and language to describe death. ‘The crowd was as silent as death.’ This was the impact the first death on the island of a small boy, had on the rest of the children. If it wasn’t for the word ‘death’ he reader would not have got the seriousness of the murder. Silence occurs every time there is a death on the island. When Simon died the ‘breeze died too’. ’There was no noise from the trickling water’ and ‘the sound of the waves were still.’
With Piggy’s unfortunate death ‘the silence was complete. Ralphs lips formed a word but no sound came out.’ He word complete shows that the persona that the island had taken, had completed his job of portraying the evil among the children. So much so, silence, an abstract noun, was satisfied. Language as stated earlier is used as a medium to communicate.
At the beginning they are bound by civilization and found it easy to communicate as they all spoke one common language. ‘Ralph found he could talk fluently and explain what he had to say.’ Jack refers t his fellow mates as his ‘choir’ then as time passed he called them both ‘choir-hunters’ and lastly only ‘hunters. This shows the path of Jack’s mental outlook on civilization and how it diminishes in his speech. ‘The quality of Jack’s speech slewed Ralph on the sand.’ Here speech represents Jacks nature as Jack turns in to a complete savage and this shocks
Ralph. ‘After they had eaten Ralph, the biguns set out along the beach.’ Golding deliberately misses the comma after the word eaten to foreshadow the end of the book where all the littleluns are ready to eat Ralph. ‘Jack, ”We are not savages. We are English and the English are best at everything.’ This shows irony as these words come from of Jack, a boy who turns into a savage first. The English are the best as they are the best in behaving like savages. In this way simple devices like silence and language can contribute in a huge way to enhance the story of the novel.