Throughout Lord of the Flies, William Golding implies many themes and symbols represented through the actions of the boys and the events taking place. Some of the themes are friendship, the need for social order, and loneliness and the need for companionship. A couple of the symbols are leadership (Ralph) and spirituality (Simon). Poems that can go along with these themes and symbols include: The Road not Taken, by Robert Frost, If by Rudyard Kipling, London by William Blake, A light exists in spring by Emily Dickenson, and Fable L: The Hare and Many Friends by John Gay.
The first poem, The Road not Taken, by Robert Frost has a certain degree of loneliness. The speaker is deciding which path to take and at the end he chooses the path less traveled. This is like what Piggy does by choosing “the road less traveled” and staying with Ralph and not following the others and going to Jack’s group. In choosing this poem I imagined a busy path with everyone going one way and the speaker going lonely down the other way.
The poem If, by Rudyard Kipling, compares to the novel by using the symbol of leadership (Ralph). This poem states that if one keeps their head strait then one will get what they want. The speaker, who is a father, is talking to his son about how to handle things when others are non-cooperative. This poem is similar in theme to the novel at the point when Ralph, though Jack is trying to overthrow him in leadership by acting savage and wild and telling the boys that it is fun, manages to keep his temper down. He doesn’t threaten the boys to stay with him, like Jack does, he lets them go.
Another poem, London by William Blake, has a theme of the need for social order. A man is walking around the streets of London hearing crying children and shouting parents, and sees a trashed and destroyed city. This poem compares to the novel at the point when all the boys are not listening to Ralph and doing whatever they want