William Golding's Lord Of The Flies: Literary Analysis

Kaitlyn Jackson
Mrs. Scott
English 9 H Period 3
18 November 2014
Lord of the Flies Symbol Essay William Golding believes that “man produces evil as bees produce honey.” In the book Lord of the Flies Golding proves that men are evil savages. In the book, a group of boys from London crash land on a deserted island. They create two governments through the struggle for power. This results in the murder of three young boys. Before they were rescued, they burned down the island into destruction. The chubby, asthmatic boy wears glasses which represents intelligence. The glasses are thrown, stolen, misused, and shatter turning everyone ignorant. William Golding argues men are savages through the mistreatment of the symbolic Piggy’s glasses. Piggy’s
glasses represent intelligence. Every time Piggy’s glasses flash and glimmer Piggy knows something that everyone else does not know. They allow him to see clearly and access the situation properly. He tells Ralph that no one is coming to get them because “they’re all dead.” He thinks that they are going to stay there until they die.
This is true because three boys die and all of the people in London are dead. In the beginning of the book, Piggy’s glasses were as if they were brand new. They were not broken or scratched. Since the glasses represent intelligence, a lot of intelligence was present on the island. The boys were acting civilized and were making intelligent decisions. They were not close to becoming savages. This foreshadows the production of evil that Golding believes is in all of us. Toward the middle of the book Jack was on duty tending to the fire. He decided to leave and take the other boys watching it with him to hunt. The fire went out just as a ship passes the island. When Jack and the hunters got back, Piggy started yelling at him. Jack got so mad that he slapped Piggy across the face. “Piggy’s glasses flew off and tinkled on the rocks [as he] cried out in terror, my specs!” Simon picked up
Piggy’s glasses that had one broken side. The intelligence on the island is now half disappeared. The boys are using violence over one another and killing. The boys lose their innocence. This demonstrates that the boys are now half savage. Golding is showing how he thinks that men are savages and vicious by the violence used to break the glasses. Near the end of Lord of the Flies Jack gets tired of listening to Ralph, so he makes his own tribe. They need fire to stay warm and cook the pigs they kill. They decide to steal Piggy’s glasses from Ralph’s tribe. When they get to the hut that the glasses are in the two tribes fight, but Ralph’s tribe mainly fights themselves. Jack manages to capture the now fully broken glasses. All the intelligence on the island is gone which assists the boys in making dreadful decisions. Even more violence has broke out making them now full savages. Golding confirms that men are savages when the glasses break fully in the process of getting stolen. The way the glasses are misused by Jack supports what Golding believes. The mistreatment and misuse of Piggy’s glasses can also be related to the real world. People every day misuse technology and intelligence such as phones and the internet to harm other people. Another example of this is guns. Intelligence made the guns for good purposes like hunting, but people misuse the technology and intelligence used to make the tool for harm and horrific scenes.