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Lord of the Flies Allegory

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Lord of the Flies Allegory
A Look at the Bigger Picture
Lord of the Flies, simply put, is an allegory representing humanity as a whole. This can be visualized by seeing the island as the world, tribes representing countries, the conch or rules are a government, and differences between tribes can be seen as war. Throughout this novel one may ponder if our world is as uncivilized as the island, and one would learn we do live in a world like such. When the boys world is interrupted with the real world, the allegory ends. So, with this in mind,when will the “real” world be rescued? William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, symbolizes humanity and uses many different objects to represent the real world, such as the conch, fire, and the pig hunts. The conch representing order relates to rules within society. Fire is used to show destruction and hope, similar to how things in the world benefit from something negatively affecting another. We live in a violent and brutal world which William Golding represents when hunting the pigs.
William Golding represents humanity though the conch shell. The conch shell allows some to be heard and gives power to lead a group. In real life there’s democracies, republics, dictatorships, monarchies, etc, yet each government has a leader and a ruler that speaks over the others. In every case, if liked or not liked, the speaker is heard. The speaker in this case is whomever has the conch. Ralph says, “I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he’s speaking,” (Golding 33). This quote shows if you hold the conch, you may talk. This is the setting up of rule and power. Remarkably when there were arguments and separations within the group, the conch shell slowly began to wear away. And finally, when there was no leadership the conch shell broke. In the world, governments crumble and through the crumbling nobody is heard. And when governments crumble there is no leader, just like how nobody listened to Ralph nor Piggy at all.
The novel Lord

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