How Does Golding Present The Specs In Lord Of The Flies

From Reason to Destruction
The allegory Lord of the Flies was written by William Golding in 1954. The story begins when a group of British boys crash land onto a deserted island with no adults present. Not long after, they are required to take on adult roles and form a functioning civilization with rules. One of the main characters in the novel Piggy, is an intellectual, shy twelve year old boy with physical imperfections including asthma and glasses. These specs were vital for Piggy to function, considering he was blind without them. As the story goes along, the boys rely on the specs to start a signal fire, but soon after the glasses are broken and eventually stolen. Golding gives Piggy’s specs a deeper meaning throughout the story; he portrays

Early on, Jack, the now obsessed hunter of the group, is verbally abusive to Piggy, calling him names and excluding him. But as Jack becomes more and more savage he begins to lose reason and logic, only caring about hunting. This shows when “Ralph made a step forward and Jack smacked Piggy’s head. Piggy’s glasses flew off and tinkled on the rocks. Piggy cried out in terror: “My specs!”’ (100). The specs are now cracked. Jack never even considered, nor did he care, that the glasses could have surely broken which would have consequently eliminated their only way of starting anymore fires. Fortunately, only one of the lenses broke. If both lenses had broke the boys would have inevitably limited their chances of surviving. They would have no way of creating fire, which was critical for their survival. As civilization and rules on the island were created, the boys thought logically and with reason, but the “breaking and losing of the glasses indicates, symbolically, the breakdown of visionary reason” (E. C. Bufkin 47). As the boys gradually become savages, they lose their reason and logic, which ultimately destroys their civilization and leads them to acts of violence upon each