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Essay On Piggy In Lord Of The Flies

406 Words2 Pages

Author, William Golding, in his novel, "Lord of the Flies," follows a group of British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and try to govern themselves. One of the boys, Piggy, is constantly bullied and considered a nuisance by the power-hungry boys on the island. Golding's use of an isolated setting in the midst of the other boys illustrates Piggy's struggle to liberate himself from their oppression. However the need to survive reveals Piggy's inventiveness and rational mindset. Piggy's overweight physique and glasses easily present him as an outcast to the other boys. His appearance made him an easy punchline for their cruel jokes. Piggy confides in Ralph hoping that the island will be a fresh start away from school bullies. …show more content…

He wanted the rules to be enforced, mostly for himself, so he constantly reminded the others of the rules. The idea of the conch is a rule Piggy attempts to push throughout the novel. He uses the conch to speak his innovative ideas and to ridicule the boy's childish behavior. The conch serves as a safe haven in which he is able to speak without being shut down by others. However this idea mostly backfires as Jack usually interrupts saying "Shut up Fatty." (page 18) The entire time they are trapped on the island, Ralph is determined to get rescued. He views a fire with a smoke signal to be the only way to be saved. Piggy's glasses are the only way the boys know to start a fire so this give him some degree of importance. Realizing Ralph's reliance on the fire and in otherways Piggy, Piggy begins to trust Ralph to protect him from Jack. His insecurities cause him to obsess over the idea of the fire to show that he does have some importance, while the savages are focused on power and hunting. Golding uses the struggle of power to demonstrate how destructive it can be. The desire for power causes the boys' civilization the crumble, discord and rivalries, and ends up destroying their island. Jack and Ralph's thirst for power in the end has them weeping for the end of

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Throughout the novel Piggy was known for his intelligence and civilized manner who gave wise decisions through the voice of Ralph. “He’s like Piggy. He says things like Piggy. He isn’t a proper chief” (Golding 126).

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We must make a fire.” enforced Ralph (38). We have already discovered that the only way the civilized British boys know how to make a fire, as of now, is with Piggy’s glasses. His glasses represent rescue because without them there would be no way to produce a signal for other nearby humans to see. It can also be seen as rescue because as stated before the glasses are the only way to start a fire and the fire rescues the kids from the night and

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Piggy’s glasses connects to his integrity because he acted like his true self when he had them on. Also as shown here by the way he instantly reacted to Ralph. Ralph was in the pool, while Piggy is on the side of the pool, then Ralph squirts water onto Piggy and laughs. He thought Piggy was going to just let it go and not do anything, but “Piggy beat the water with his hand” onto Ralph (Golding 131). Piggy demonstrates the lesson he learns because if Ralph had done this in the beginning of the book Piggy would 've just taken it or try to ask him to stop.

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The Lord Of The Flies by William Golding is a book about a plane full of boys crashing on an island. The boys are by themselves no adults so they have to survive on their own and establish their own government. Piggy is one of the first characters we meet as a boy with poor eyesight, a weight problem and asthma so the readers already like him even if no one else likes him. Piggy is the closest thing the boys have to an adult on the island. Throughout the story Piggy embraces the character traits of being intellectually intelligent, Mature and loyal.

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Madison Hemenway Mrs.Wood Pre-ap English 10 May 2016 Rough Draft Being a leader is hard when you are different from the people that you want lead. We see that Piggy really isn't like the other boys both physically and mentally. ” He is physically different from the other boys on the island, he is rounder, wears glasses, and has asthma.

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Without Piggy this would have never been possible as his glasses help create the fire. As Ralph is in control the fire stays on and there is a hope that he boys will act civilized and stick together, but once the fire is turned of the only one that still has a desire to get rescued is Piggy as all the other boys attempt to change their life style and accept their fate. The signal fire thus functions as a kind of measurement of the strength of the civilized instinct remaining on the island. Ironically, at the end of the novel, a fire finally summons a ship to the island, but not the signal fire. Instead, it is the fire of savagery the forest fire

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Even when the boys decide that whoever is holding the conch get to speak, the boys interrupt and take the conch away. The boys treat Piggy so much like a child and not a part of their society because he was still at the stage of puberty unlike

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The Lord of The Flies, by William Golding, is an allegorical novel which depicts the story of a group of English boys, who are stranded on the island after their plane is shot down while attempting to leave World War II. Without the presence of civilization on the island, many of the boys resort to evil, and inherit barbaric traits. Jack, the leader of the choirboys, reveals his true nature, and shows how he needs to power over the other boys. Jack reveals his need for power, when he approaches the island not accepting democratic principles, to then using fear and cruelness to keep himself in power. Spending time on the island without structure, Jack becomes more obsessed with gaining power over the other boys When arriving on the island, the

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Piggy tries to explain to the boys that they need to act like adults to survive otherwise things will get out of hand. That’s why Piggy pushed the conch concept so much. Piggy’s favorite rule was whoever has the conch will be the only one to talk. Throughout the whole book he would scream “I have the conch (Golding 42, 45, 82, 90, 101, and 180)!” His last words included I have the conch.

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Out of all the boys, Piggy is the most dedicated to adhering to the rules they set, especially the rule of whoever holds the conch “won’t be interrupted: Except by [Ralph].” (Golding, 33). Even near the end of the book, when the groups separate, Piggy is convinced Jack would try to steal the conch, when really all the other boys are focused on the fire because that is what is needed for survival. Piggy also reasoned that the the beast was nonexistent by saying “life is scientific, that’s what it is,” (Golding, 88). Direction from the outside and adult worlds always comes from Piggy, and he is the character that most closely represents an adult.

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The first fire is built to signal ships for their rescue; it symbolizes hope here. Once the fire is burning brightly, the boys “paused to enjoy the freshness of [the fire]... they flung themselves down in the shadows that lay among the shattered rocks,” (41). The fire comforts the young island inhabitants because it lets them relax with the hope of getting rescued. The boys on the island start to lose hope, even Ralph. Ralph tells Piggy “let the fire go then, for tonight,” (164), showing that he has stopped caring about getting home.

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Jack and his tribe attack Piggy, Samneric, and Ralph in order to get fire. “... and he made stabbing motions with his spear. From his left hand dangled Piggy’s broken glasses”(168). For the need of fire, the boys would go to war with each other. Even though the fire is a useful tool, it leads to a war between the two groups that ends with Piggy’s death and almost Ralph’s.

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If Piggy wasn’t such an outcast to the boys and society, he would’ve been chief instead of Ralph. Having this trait also makes it easy for Jack and the other boys to pick on him. They all think of him weirdly because he isn’t able to do physical things like the rest of them. In addition, Piggy’s glasses make the other kids think he looks weird and they would make fun of him for that reason as well. Piggy being an outcast outholds him from a lot of things like socializing and sharing opinions.

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Piggy stays the same throughout and does not change and Golding uses Piggy to represent how people should be. The boys on the island are immature, unkind, and ungenerous due to the lack of any adults who would function to encourage more thoughtful and kind. Piggy is an easy target for their inhumanity for two reasons, his physical self and his behavior, as he is overweight, a physical characteristic that the boys make fun of him for.. The other boys exclude him and taught him for that and the fact that he can't swim even Ralph is insulting Piggy, when he says "sucks to your ass-mar" (pg 8) when Piggy blames his asthma as the reason he wasn't allowed to swim.

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