Lord Of The Flies Communication Analysis

Imagine if a person was on Survivor.This person would never talk or listen to anyone, and would do their own thing. They would use their own knowledge and the person would not listen to the group. The competitor would just do what they pleased and not follow the established rules. The team would have lost the competition. This all happened because they did not communicate. The loss communication was a huge part of the breakdown in the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding. There are many reasons why a person may see this, but the three that have been chosen are as followed. The isolation and separation between the characters cause communication to be lost. A third person perspective does not reveal all the information present. The final one is the atmosphere in the novel implies that there is a loss of communication. When communication is lost between people, civilization will fall apart.
Throughout the novel, the characters could not communicate effectively. This was shown when Ralph and Jack agreed that they should make a signal fire. But later on in the novel Jack and the hunters forgot about the signal fire. Ralph was angry with Jack because he “let the
fire out,” (Golding 73). But when Ralph confronted Jack about this, Jack was not listening. This shows how Jack and the hunters did not listen to Ralph and did their own thing on the island. Also how Jack and the hunters separated themselves from the rest of the island which cut down the communication between them and the other boys on the island. Another way that is shown in the novel is when Jack moves to Castle Rock after the fight with Ralph. When Jack is there, Ralph comes to visit him, but Jack does not want him there. Jack's anger for Ralph takes over and he yells at Ralph that he should “go away… [and] leave [Jack] alone,” (195). This is important because when Jack left it shows the isolation of him to all the boys and the separation between everyone, This is said because the boys would have to pick between Ralph and Jack. But during their time on the island, before the separation of Jack and the hunters were emerged in the idea of hunting. Everyone who has read this book can tell that Jack and the hunters have emerged themselves in the idea of hunting. Whenever they would go hunting, they would always chant “kill the pig. Cut [the pig’s] throat. Spill [the pig’s] blood”, (72). From creating this chant, the reader can tell that Jack and the hunters were engrossed in this idea of hunting. They used hunting as a shield from doing other important things on the island. They used communication as a block because they would shield themselves from everyone and would go do their own thing and not care about anyone. Isolation and separation were the two biggest reasons for why all the boys lost communication on the island. This was all read from a third person perspective.
The whole truth is not communicated when reading a text from a third person perspective. From the perspective it is written in, the reader can only see something as how it is written. The first example is when Piggy died. "Piggy fell forty feet and landed on this back across a square", because Roger had pushed a giant rock onto him (201). From this, the reader can see that Roger had killed Piggy. But from the third person perspective, the reader will never know if it was intentional. From the perspective it is written from, the reader will never know if Jack and Roger planned this death because from reading the novel, the reader would be able to tell that Jack and Piggy have this hatred that started in the beginning of the novel. The communication between Jack and Ralph is never shown throughout the book. The second example is when they decide that they should create a fire. So Jack and the hunters ran up the mountain to create a fire. The boys never made the huts like how they were supposed to instead, they went “howling and screaming up this here mountain”(45). This is because Ralph had mentioned making a fire. From the way the story is written, it shows that Jack was only into the idea of a fire, not a signal fire. This is a problem because, Jack decides to make the signal fire and not tend to it. He did not communicate this to Ralph or any of the other boys, so the signal fire went out. The last example is when all the boys were at the assembly and they were discussing the beastie and what the littluns saw. They were going on about the beastie, but Ralph decided that he was going to stop all the talk of the beastie by just telling them that “this was [not] a good island”, (53). This is important because it shows that they had a very important problem on the island and someone was going to have to deal with it. From the way it is written, the reader can see that Jack decides that they should kill the beastie while Ralph believes that it is not real. From this, the two boys never communicated how they should fix the problem that was upon them, and because they did they not communicate, it lead to the death of Simon a boy on the island. From these examples the reader can tell that, a third person point of view only shows one side. If this novel was written from the perspective of one of the boys, the breakdown of communication that happened on the island could have been seen in a more clear and concise way. Also from the way it is written, the tone of everything in the book is just all over the place.
The atmosphere created by the characters indicates that the children cannot communicate with one another. Many things affected the atmosphere in the novel.The first example is when no one votes for Jack as chief and he leaves. Jack thought that there should be a new chief, he asked all of the boys, who they think that chief should be. Then, when no one voted for Jack, he “[went] off by [himself]” (140). From there he went to Castle Rock. From this, the reader can tell that when Jack leaves the tribe, it ends the relationship between Jack and Ralph. This is a problem because when Jack leaves it kills the communication they had. The reason for this is because the boys feel that they have to pick sides and stay there. When they pick sides, most of them go to Jack. The second example is when most to all of the boys left Ralph and joined Jack’s tribe. When Ralph and Piggy were doing something, Ralph was wondering where everyone was, and “they [have] gone,” and left them and joined Jack (144). When the boys left, the only ones who stayed were Piggy, Samneric, Simon, and some littluns. This created a line between the two groups which made it hard for anyone on the island to communicate. This is all said because no one said anything to Ralph so Ralph is just left there alone with a few boys. The final example is when Jack was leaving the group after the vote. Ralph was telling him to stay, but he persisted on going by himself. This was the final tipping point in Jack and Ralph’s relationship because “[Jack is] not going to play any longer. Not with [Ralph]”, (140)When he left, that was the biggest part of the breakdown of their communication. Jack and Ralph being in the same group was a big part of the communication on the island because they were the leaders on the island. When Jack decided to leave and make his own tribe he caused communication and civilization on the island to fall apart.
The loss of communication will cause civilization to break down.
This is shown in the novel for many reasons. One is that it demonstrates that the character’s communication is poor. Another one is whatever perspective a text is written in is the only way to read it. The final one is the atmosphere created by the characters showcases the breakdown of communication in their society. From this, a person can see that communication is the foundation of any civilization. To conclude, the communication lost on the island is only a small example of what could happen. Communication is not done well on a day to day basis. What people do not realize is that the majority of communication is listening. If more people listened there would be less disagreement, like in the novel, and civilization would not fall
apart.