The Lord Of The Flies Literary Analysis Essay

Literary Analysis Essay
Children are drawn to the idea of having a chance to be the grownups rather than a child, but there are so many things that could go wrong! Children are not fully developed. Children often lack the wits, the life experience, and the maturity adults possess. Lord of the Flies, a dystopian novel taking place in the 1950s, by William Golding, expresses the problems a society of only children could possibly face. Stranded on an uninhabited island after a plane crash in which their pilot died, a group of young, school aged, boys find themselves running into problems at every turn as they struggle to govern themselves, survive on the island, and get rescued. In this novel, the author uses Simon’s character development from
In the first place, when the boys initially start a fire on the mountain, they do so with Piggy’s specs, using them as a burning glass, upon Jack’s prompt to do so: “His specs--use them as burning glasses” (40). At this point towards the beginning of the novel, Piggy’s glasses are whole, and they serve a purpose. They contribute. They work towards the boys’ survival, and towards their potential rescue. This is mirrored in the role of the leader. The role Piggy’s glasses play is symbolic of the role of a leader in their society. At the point in the novel that this is occurring, Ralph has just become the leader of their society by a large majority of the vote. This was largely agreed upon, suggesting a society in unity underneath Ralph. Just as Piggy’s glasses are whole, and serve a purpose in their struggle for survival, Ralph’s ability to lead is unshattered, and as a leader, he serves a purpose in their society. In the beginning of the novel, with a strong leader established, the boys are able to maintain a life in which they are still of a schoolboy persona. Later on, Jack lets the fire go out in order to hunt, which sparks a fight between Ralph and Jack. During this fight, in a true act of friendship and loyalty, Piggy sticks up for Ralph. In response, “Jack smacked Piggy’s head.
In Jack’s new tribe of a society, Ralph is the enemy. Ralph is the only one who has ever kept Jack from what he wanted. On the island, the boys have begun to mirror the savage nature of animals and the people before them, hunting, and even going on a manhunt for Ralph. In this manhunt, they jeopardized the entire island and all of its inhabitants for the sake of killing ralph, shown when ralph was “running beneath the trees, with the grumble of the forest explained. They had smoked him out and set the island on fire” (197). This is a concept of the alpha male, that occurs in nature. Jack feels threatened by the idea of Ralph being there to challenge his chieftainship, so he must eliminate Ralph. In an attempt to do so, they set a fire, which could have easily destroyed the entire island, and killed all of them. In hunting Ralph, the boys are imitating a structure of nature, found in animals and wildlife, an example of their regression from a civilized people, into something less than human. Thus far, they have not seen an adult since the pilot in the plane. They have drifted away from the traditional society that they were accustomed to in Britain. Right as Ralph feels cornered, he runs out of a thicket and is met with a British naval officer. When asked if there