Lord of the Flies: An Analysis

Destruction The novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding definitely represents Golding’s fear of the thin veneer of civilization in the modern world and how it is bound to crumble at any time. In Golding’s novel, the boys who are stuck on the island resort to savagery after many grueling months of forcing civilization on each other. Once the boys have exited the modern world the thin layer of civilization is now gone. This forced them to use savagery to get what they want instead of being organized, using compromise, and staying civilized. The boys attempt to rise in power through murder, worry, manipulation, and fear. The boys on the island first attempt to start a fire and succeed in this attempt. The fire on the mountain represents both the best and the worst in the human experience. The boys learned teamwork and had hopes of being rescued. This exemplifies the best in the human experience because working together is a key life skill, as is optimism. They want to make a fire to signal a ship if it ever happens to come to the shore. A boy named Piggy lets the group use his glasses to start the fire. Although the boys worked together in some ways, they also turned against each other. The boarding school and choirboys all pit themselves against Piggy, the fat and asthmatic child. He tries to give his ideas about starting the fire until Ralph, the fair-headed boy, “elbowed him to one side” (Golding 40). Ralph yells at Piggy because apparently he was supposed to make a list of the boys who had gotten out of the crashed plane safely. It seems as though the boys are just trying to find someone to take their sadness and anger out on. Piggy is an easy target. This represents the worst in the human experience. It shows that if you are a little different than your peers, they will make fun of you for no reason at all. One boy speaks up after the boys succeed in starting the fire and converse about how many of them there are on the island. Piggy decides to tell the