Lord Of The Flies Symbolism

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The Importance of Symbolism
Golding uses symbolism in the Lord of the Flies novel to effectively portray his intended message to his audience. Golding attempts to show us how our nature can take over without the societal constraints we encounter in our everyday lives. In my personal opinion Golding’s use of symbolism in the novel is very effective and well done. I will explain three of the symbols that I found to be most important in bringing the novel to successfully portray Golding’s message. These three symbols are both characters and objects, the characters being Simon and Jack while the object is a pig’s head on a stick.
Simon symbolizes many things, the most prominent of these things is a greater grasp on reality and a higher level of …show more content…
The sow is brutally murdered and then her head is put on a stake which speaks to Simon (127-128).The nature of the sow’s murder shows that the once humane boys have devolved to savages with a thirst for blood. Once the sow is beheaded, Simon calls this head the lord of the flies as the flies have begun feeding on the sow’s head slowly just like the island has with the boys’ humanity. The “lord of the flies” more than once begins to try to taunt Simon by saying things like, “Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill,” (133) and the sow’s head appears to be always grinning also (128). This specific quote confirms Simon’s theory that the beast was within the boys’ and delays Simon from returning to the others, taunting him like the devil would and this also further foreshadows Simon’s death. This grin is also a taunt as the sow’s head is beginning to decompose and when Simon leaves there seems to be nothing but a “black ball,” (134). Later on, after Simon’s death, Ralph also encounters the “lord of the flies” which even as there is mostly a skull that remains the head still seems be grinning (171). The decomposition of the sow’s head shows how little humanity remains within the boys on the island. The everlasting grin seems to still be a taunt and even when the skull is destroyed Ralph says …show more content…
Very early on in the novel Jack actually disregards the only rule that had been established and also attacked Piggy (64-65). Jack disregard for the rules supports the theory that he is destructive to the order within the society to which he is incorporated into. Also the violence that Jack inflicts on Piggy shows that he has a need to assert his authority and will do so physically if need be as well as a the lack of the ability to see the future consequences of his actions since he breaks Piggy’s glasses, a valuable asset for starting the fire. Jack’s violent solution to Piggy’s disagreeing with him also foreshadows more violence to be inflicted on others later in the novel. Jack later in the novel shows his true character when he manipulates Ralph’s words to work in his favor (117). This manipulation shows that Jack had a greed for power and that he was willing to destroy someone else’s reputation to attain it. This also shows that even though he may not be the best leader and that he may know this, he still will try to gain this power which may in turn destroy the societies order. Jack shows how he asserts his authority as a tyrant through servant use (138) and physical scare tactics (147). Jack abuses his power and removes everyone else’s say in any sort of government matters showing he is a tyrannical leader. Also Jack
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