Specs In Lord Of The Flies

In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a plane full of British boys gets shot down, leaving the pilot dead, while most of the boys survive. The boys find themselves on a uninhabited island, away from the civil society they once knew. Ralph, the fair haired protagonist, becomes chief and attempts to keep the boys civilized, but his attempts fail. Over time, the boys go down the path of savagery and become careless about their responsibilities on the island, instead they value food and hunting the pigs found in the forest. Jack, one of the older kids, supports this behavior, which leads to conflict between him and Ralph ultimately creating more internal conflicts in the group. Throughout their savage descent many items in the novel serve as hope and rescue such as, the conch shell, the specs, and the signal fire. These items try to control this new society. Piggy, often referred to as “fatty” (Golding. 21), has a lack of physical strength, but makes up for it with “intelligence” (22). Piggy’s specs serve as a greater use than just glasses, they give him the ability to see and think in this society, giving him the advantage over the others. When Piggy and the others try to make fire on the hill, Jack points out that, “his
specs-use them as burning glasses” (40), this becomes the main use of them. This helps the boys light the signal fire, ultimately meaning rescue. Later on Jack and Piggy get into an argument and Jack slaps piggy, breaking the specs. Once the specs become broken, Piggy can't see physically, but mentally he can see the boys slow descent into savagery. The boys fear his visionary personality so they kill him. Ultimately the specs and Piggy represent order and the idea of an ideal society. While walking on the beach, Ralph and Piggy find a “conch [shell]” (15) quickly after Piggy suggest they use it to “call the others” (16), communication becomes the conches first purpose. The conch becomes “most [powerful]” (22), even more powerfully than Ralph the chief. Ralph blows the conch one more time and, “gazed at the savages intently” (175), this shows that even the savages follow the conch, the conch shines even in the dark. All hope becomes lost when “the conch [explodes] into a thousand white fragments” (181). The conch represents order and hope that this group will change there was and become civilized again, but with it destroyed society does not have a future. The signal fire on the mountain serves as the rescue for the boys, but they care so little about it.
Ralph heavily expresses the importance of the signal fire saying, “The fire is the important thing on the island. How can we we ever be rescued except by luck, if we don't keep a fire going?” (80). Without the fire the boys the can’t return home, but the hunters don’t careless and do not want to keep it going they think the pigs have more value than the smoke. The boys keep letting the fire go out and don't ever get rescued until the end, because of a large fire the hunters started. Ralph had the right idea the whole time, but no one cared. The signal fire served a bigger purpose than just fire, it meant rescue, away from this savage
environment. All the symbols affect the novel differently, but save the same purpose, civilization. All the people who believed in the boys reverting back to civilization became hunted or killed (Simon, Piggy, and Ralph). These symbols served as the only hope the group had, without these the group would of ended up more savage and uncaring. Schopenhauer writes, “Man is at bottom a wild and terrible animal. We know him only was what we call civilization has tamed and trained him”, theses symbols mean civilization in this society.