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Literary analysis of lord of the flies
Literary analysis of lord of the flies
Analyses of the Lord Of The Flies
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In the novel Lord of the Flies, it is obvious that the character Jack is the savage compared to all the other boys on the island. Jack is the cause of all the arguments and death that will later occur on the island. Many of the boys on the island are scared of Jack when he acts cruel and selfish. This makes them join his group, so they don't have to worry about getting hurt. During a group meeting Jack says “We shall take fire from the others,” (Golding 161).
Everybody is frightened by something. From pig heads impaled on a stick to a dead parachutist falling from the sky, in the world of Lord of the Flies, there are numerous reasons for which one should be scared. In the story, a group of English schoolboys find themselves stranded on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The children have no parents to protect them from the mysterious animal of a “beast” that is haunting them. The “beast” is a legacy that is abundant in changing throughout Lord of the Flies.
When the boys get stranded on this island they must take care of themselves and try to get rescued. As the boys climb this mountain to get home they face new challenges which resulted them to descend into savagery. With these new challenges of killing the pig for the first time, them breaking the conch, and deaths of Simon and Piggy they to descend into savagery causing them to lose their innocence. After the boys crash landed on the island it was only a matter of time before the boys descend into savagery because lack of leadership, need for survival and loss of innocence. Their first goal on the island was to have fun and get rescued but throughout their stay, they get further away from that.
IMAGERY The novel begins with a bunch of young boys who are trapped on an island after a plane crash. Throughout the novel William Golding includes various types of imagery to accurately describe each significant place on the island the boys are stranded on. An example would be calling the place where the airplane sliced through the brush “the scar”. The most realistic use of imagery is the description of the patch of the island where the boys would burn what they intended to be a "small fire."
It was a day like any other day, but for the boy with fair hair, it would change his life forever. This is the beginning to the novel, by William Golding, that would surpass any other novel. And thus the book begins, marooning a group of English boys on an island, destroying their innocence, forever. This novel is like no other: Exploring the ideas of fear, war, and humanity’s evilness. So let’s begin.
In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, because of three defining moments, Jack changed the most out of all the boys. The first of the moments that changed him occurred in the beginning of the novel on page 23 when Ralph was chosen to be the chief of the boys instead of Jack. Jack was upset at not being chief, but he still took a position of leadership by making the choir boys the hunters and volunteering to be in charge of them. Ralph says “Jack’s in charge of the choir. They can be-what do you want them to be?’’
The Webster Online Dictionary defines bullying as, a blustering, browbeating person; especially: one who is habitually cruel, insulting, or threatening to others who are weaker, smaller, or in some way vulnerable tormented by the neighborhood bully. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bully, May 1, 2018) The Lord of The Flies by William Golding is about children that have been stranded on an island, who barely know each other. Throughout the story, there is bullying and fear. William Golding represents this through some of the main characters Piggy, Ralph, Simon and Jack.
A Symbolic Moment Arguably, the conch shell is one of the most symbolic items in the novel; the moment Ralph blows into it, the boys are brought together. It is this pivotal moment that makes Ralph appear to be the clear choice for a leader. It is easy to understand why the boys gravitated towards him, their first sight of Ralph was of him sitting, "the conch trailing from one hand, his head bowed on his knees;" (Golding, 19) a clear image of confidence and strength. The boys are easily swayed by his symbolic power and when it comes time to choose between Ralph and Jack, the majority of the boys rush to support Ralph as their leader. Why did they choose Ralph?
Imagine being stranded on an island in the 1930s when your 12. Your with a group of boys that you don't know and there are no adults. How would you act? The Lord Of The Flies is a book about a group of british boys that were on a plane that crashed in the middle of the ocean on an island.
In order to survive, people will do things they wouldn’t normally do or will go to great lengths to do what is necessary to. People will do anything to save themselves rather than trying to save others. Also, things that people will do is they will try to harm you or kill you to survive. People really do take these things serious and you never know how far you are willing to go until you are actually put in that situation. People will do anything to save themselves rather than trying to save everybody else.
“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.” This quote is said by Peter Drucker. The more effort leaders put in the more effort they are going to get out from the people they are leading. The leader might be dis-liked, but being liked isn’t in the job description. Being a leader might not be that hard, but just because they are a leader doesn’t mean they are good.
Humans, according to the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, are selfish by nature. In his landmark work, Leviathan, he explains the importance of a strong government in society. According to Hobbes, without a strong system of government people would revert into a primitive state; war would run rampant, the natural law would not be abided, and those once tamed by society would become evil. William Golding based his novel, Lord of The Flies, on a similar idea. In this novel, many characters digress from civility into savagery.
Everyone will face evil at some point in their lives, but the way the evil is embraced or deflected will differ among every man. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, symbolism is used to communicate the theme of Understanding the Inhumanity/Inherent Evil of Man as represented through the double ended spear, the fire, and the Lord of the Flies. The spear represents the evil inside of humankind and the perception that killing and hurting each other out of anger is acceptable. Fire symbolizes the evil act of stealing to achieve a human wants. Lastly, the Lord of the Flies symbolizes the Inherent Evil of Man through demonstrating that a boy understood that the evil is within them instead of around them, and is not something that could be killed
A quote by Benjamin Disraeli said, “ Change is inevitable. Change is constant.” This quote illustrates how everyone goes through changes in their life, no matter their situation. This quote is clearly shown in Lord of the Flies as all the characters changed throughout the story. In Golding’s story several boys crash land on an island and are stuck without any adults.
In Lord of the Flies, William Golding shows the progression of absolute power, and how ambition can take over one's mind. Stranded on an island after their plane crashed, the boys create their own democracy with one absolute ruler, just like many other governments throughout history. The boys voted Ralph as their ruler, but Jack slowly starts to take some of Ralph’s power, and eventually usurps him as their chief. Lord of the Flies suggests that absolute power is corrupt, and that humans are overly ambitious in wanting to take power from the person who has the most of it. Just like any large group of people, the boys decide that they “ought to have a chief to decide things” (Golding 22).
