William Golding's Lord Of The Flies: Literary Analysis
Kiva McCollum
English II Honors, Berkshire Henry Thoreau once said, "The savage in man is never quite eradicated" ("Savagery Quotes"). There is savagery in every person, even a group of british grade-school boys, and is never really destroyed. The Lord of the Flies is the story of a plane crash, boys stranded on an island, and the transition from civilized humans to cold blooded savages. William Golding 's The Lord of the Flies uses imagery and symbolism to create an image in the reader 's mind and to convey the idea of society through a child 's eyes. Lord of the Flies uses many literary devices, one of the most important being symbolism, which effects the importance and meaning of some objects and characters. Symbolism is something that represents …show more content…
William Golding uses symbolism to explain his idea of the Earth and the way it works in much simpler terms, through a child 's eyes. At the very beginning of the book, a boy named Ralph uses a conch shell to call an assembly of the others after they 've gotten into a plane crash on the island. Golding writes, "Ralph smiled and held up the conch for silence" (23). The conch symbolizes order and authority. Everyone knows to quiet down when Ralph holds up the conch, already associating it with order. It 's evident that the conch is an extremely important symbol in the book. Another use of symbolism in The Lord of the Flies is introduced when Simon goes into the forest to think. He stumbles across a pig 's head mounted on a sharpened stick that Jack and the other hunters had killed earlier. As Simon wakes from fainting after his conversation with The Lord of the Flies, Simon imagines that it says, " 'Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! '" (Golding 143). Like in the bible, Simon, who symbolises Jesus, and The Lord of the Flies (pig 's head) which symbolizes the Devil, have a talk. They talk about The Beast,
English II Honors, Berkshire Henry Thoreau once said, "The savage in man is never quite eradicated" ("Savagery Quotes"). There is savagery in every person, even a group of british grade-school boys, and is never really destroyed. The Lord of the Flies is the story of a plane crash, boys stranded on an island, and the transition from civilized humans to cold blooded savages. William Golding 's The Lord of the Flies uses imagery and symbolism to create an image in the reader 's mind and to convey the idea of society through a child 's eyes. Lord of the Flies uses many literary devices, one of the most important being symbolism, which effects the importance and meaning of some objects and characters. Symbolism is something that represents …show more content…
William Golding uses symbolism to explain his idea of the Earth and the way it works in much simpler terms, through a child 's eyes. At the very beginning of the book, a boy named Ralph uses a conch shell to call an assembly of the others after they 've gotten into a plane crash on the island. Golding writes, "Ralph smiled and held up the conch for silence" (23). The conch symbolizes order and authority. Everyone knows to quiet down when Ralph holds up the conch, already associating it with order. It 's evident that the conch is an extremely important symbol in the book. Another use of symbolism in The Lord of the Flies is introduced when Simon goes into the forest to think. He stumbles across a pig 's head mounted on a sharpened stick that Jack and the other hunters had killed earlier. As Simon wakes from fainting after his conversation with The Lord of the Flies, Simon imagines that it says, " 'Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! '" (Golding 143). Like in the bible, Simon, who symbolises Jesus, and The Lord of the Flies (pig 's head) which symbolizes the Devil, have a talk. They talk about The Beast,