Figurative language can greatly enrich a novel by augmenting the general story with depictions and details that add to the general meaning of the writing. William Golding uses this type of composition in his novel Lord of the Flies. By using figurative language, the author can extend a greater message throughout the novel by bringing together certain words and phrases that serve a meaning throughout the whole book. In the novel, Golding employs figurative language to enhance the theme of the story that civilization is always a few acts from barbarity. The utilization of the conch and war paint to symbolize both civilization and savagery respectively epitomize the constant battle for supremacy in the minds of the impressionable public. Throughout Lord of the Flies, Golding uses figurative language effectively to demonstrate that the conch symbolizes democracy and order. This object represents the respectable and orderly aspects of life on the island and is the main power token of Ralph and Piggy until the tragedy that occurs. When Piggy is struck by the rock pushed off the cliff by Roger “the conch explode[s] into a thousand tiny white fragments and cease[s] to exist” (Golding 209). Within this sequence of events, the conch is effective in illustrating the theme that society can always be …show more content…
By coating their faces in mud and the blood of the butchered sow, they are able to adopt new personas that complete a transformation of civilized children to cold-blooded killers. They soon become the respected and feared members of the island and Ralph and his tribe understand “the liberation into savagery that the concealing paint [brings]” (Golding 199). Even the naïve and timid boys of Ralph’s faction comprehend that by the tribe painting their faces, they become killers without morals. This