Lord Of The Flies Symbolism Essay

The Symbol of Fire and it’s change with the boys Our emotionally blinded world often turns to the sweetest things, completely oblivious to the harm it can bring upon us. When no adult survives the plane crash that sends a group of british boys stranded on an island, the responsibility of survival and rescue is upto them. William Golding in Lord of the Flies uses the symbol of fire to represent the quick changing nature of these isolated boys. The symbol changes from a signal fire to being neglected by the group to have it misused by them to make a death fire closely relating to the boys’ deep will to be rescued to their slow change to savage behaviours before turning into complete savages due to the lost of contact with civilization. In

Ralph, representing civilization and Jack, representing savagery are now heading in different directions. Yet the responsibility of leadership falls on both of them. Some of these boy’s priorities turn away from the signal fire and onto the uncivilized life of the wilderness. Golding includes the human nature to change and adapt to a situation, showing how easy it is for something good to turn bad. On the other hand, Ralph and a few others try their best to keep their only hope of rescue, the fire burning, “Can 't you see we ought to--ought to die before we let the fire out?” (Golding 87). Nevertheless, the uncivilized, savage behaviour of the boys is clear when a ship passes by the island when the fire goes out and majority of the group does not seem to care anymore, ‘You should have seen the blood!’ said Jack when Ralph, Piggy and Simon confronted him about their loss of opportunity (Golding 87). This turning point is crucial as their savage behaviour now is obvious from the loss of connection from civilization has changed their priorities from being rescued to hunting and killing pigs. The shifts in interests and behaviour of majority of the boys has a connection to the change in the importance of keeping the fire burning, showing that they have lost hope and turning to their savage