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Savagery In Lord Of The Flies

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Humans… or savages? A large group of boys end up stranded on a deserted island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. These young, innocent children find themselves struggling to balance their savagery with civilization. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the conflict between civilization and concealing savagery appears through symbolism with the conch, grown-ups, and fire.
Throughout the novel, the conch symbolizes civilization and order because of how it protects the boys from their savage personalities. When Ralph picks up the conch shell from the lagoon and admires its beauty, Piggy positively explains, “A conch; ever so expensive. I bet if you wanted to buy one, you’d have to pay pounds and pounds and pounds” (16). As Piggy describes …show more content…

Following the creation of the first fire with Piggy’s glasses, the narrator illustrates, “On one side the air was cool, but on the other the fire thrust out a savage arm of heat…” (41). The narrator portrays how the two sides of the fire prove similar to the characteristics of all the boys. These characteristics appear as civilization and savagery, and the savage side of the fire shows to overpower the other, similar to the way it appears in children’s minds. Soon after Ralph let his anger out at Jack for letting the fire die, Jack tries to apologize when he insists, “We can light the fire again” (69). As Jack tells himself he can light it, he knows inside that as all of the kids go savage, and that civilization disappears and cannot return easily. really no way back to civilization. The fire goes out, and so do their memories and thoughts of civilization. At the time of the big fire Jack set to the island when Ralph tries to escape, the narrator mentions, “They had smoked him out and set the island on fire” (197). Since Ralph lead the group all along, he proves his organization and civilization through all of his actions. After Roger kills Piggy, Ralph did not have many friends to rely on or talk to, and Jack has a strong desire to kill him. As Jack starts this disaster, he threw away every existing idea of civilization by almost killing Ralph, the only memory of it. Fire proves itself as a symbol of civilization conflicting with savagery in the novel because of how the boys change when a fire is present or not

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Jack has set fire to the forest just to find Ralph, disregarding all the bad outcomes of doing this: “ All at once the lights flickering ahead of him merged together, the roar of the forest rose to thunder and a tall bush directly in his path burst into a great fan-shaped flame” (Golding 199). Jack sets fire to the forest just to find Ralph, not thinking of any consequences that come with burning down the forest. The fire has lost its symbol of hope, but has now become the symbol of destruction as Jack has used it for. The fire symbolizes hope and then destruction while the boys’ hair and clothing represent how they are civilized but then go

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This only further proves my point that jack represents savagery in this novel. Due to Jacks overwhelming desire to hunt a pig he along with a small group of boys go into the jungle to try their luck. Because of Jacks carelessness, though the fire is extinguished and they lost a chance of being rescued. We also learn in this chapter that the fire symbolizes the hope they share a group, when the fire went out so did their hope, but when they relight it they regain some of their hope. Piggy being the “fat nerd” of the group his thoughts and beliefs are immediately shot down, its only when Ralph tells them to do the suggested task do they listen.

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In the beginning the boys want to sustain the fire. This demonstrates their want to be return home. Nevertheless,  when the fire is allowed to go out, it is emblematic of the boys refusal of civilization and return to

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So when Golding tells us that in Jack’s “left hand dangled Piggy’s broken glasses.” (191), it demonstrates that Jack’s savage boys now have the power to make fire. The fire symbolizes hope when on the civilized side but its inner demon is of destruction and evil. Predictably this demon does in fact come out when in the end Jack and his boys “had smoked him (Ralph) out and set the island on fire” (Golding 224), in order to kill Ralph. Ironically, the fire instead fulfills its civilized purpose, of a signal instead of killing Ralph. The purpose and the extreme strength of the fire here shows us that the boys had become brutal savages, literally killing civilization out of the their systems.

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Out there. [You] said, ‘[You would] keep the fire going and [you] let it out!’” (Golding 70). In this particular instance, the fire embodies a physical representation of the boys’ connection to civilization. Keeping that idea in mind, Ralph’s fury with Jack’s negligence towards the fire demonstrates his pragmatic attitude towards hierarchies and rules within the group; he feels that everyone must prioritize them or the group will lose their connection to society.

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815 Words | 4 Pages

At this point the idea of fire for to regain civilization has lost its grasp in jack's eyes and now turns to power and survival. Jack is telling the rest of his tribe the plan for stealing the fire and shows his transition to primitive behavior when saying, “We shall take the fire from the others. Listen tomorrow we’ll hunt and get meat, tonight i’ll go along with two hunters, who’ll come” (161). Ralph is extremely mad at Jack and he is beaten up and tired when he tells piggy, “They’ve got our fire, they stole it” (169). The passage shows people the transition from enlightened thinking to crude and barbaric behaviors.

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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.

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As the book continues, a fire is made in hopes for a rescue, and Jack becomes obsessed with hunting and becomes violent. Piggy has many smart ideas that Ralph ends up using, and Jack eventually leaves the tribe and creates his own. Everyone except Ralph and Piggy join Jack’s tribe, until Ralph is the only one left. As Jack and the rest of the savages attempt to kill Ralph, a huge fire is made and a naval officer ends up finding the

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436 Words | 2 Pages

“‘We can help them find us… We must make a fire.’” (pg 38) At the beginning of the book, Ralph has an idea to create a signal fire hoping to be found which is maintained all through the book and is seldom let out. Throughout the story, Ralph becomes more and more caring for this symbol of hope, and the boys progressively are plunged further and further into chaos. “We’ve got to relight that fire.

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1227 Words | 5 Pages

Jack’s tribe then lit a fire to smoke Ralph out into the open, so they could find him and kill him. Originally the fire was used for the purpose of rescue but now is being used to create chaos and to kill Ralph. In chapter 12 of the novel, the fire symbolically rages out of control. This shows how far the boys have strayed from being civilized and how primitive and savage the boys have become. In the book, the boys decide to build a fire to help them get rescued, but as time goes on, the fire is used for harmful things such as killing Ralph in the last chapter.

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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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980 Words | 4 Pages

When Ralph and his people were being attacked, "Two figures rushed at the fire and he prepared to defend himself but they grabbed half-burnt branches and raced away along the beach" (Golding, 140). Jack's tribe cannot make fire without the help of Piggy's glasses, so they run to Ralph's camp and steal some of their fire. They are eating not because they are hungry, but because they killed a pig. The boys are completely oblivious to the fact that fire is their only hope of rescue and their using it for fun and hunting. A little bit after Jack and his people invade Ralph's camp out he exclaimed, "We hunt and feast and have fun" (Golding, 140).

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907 Words | 4 Pages

(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

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939 Words | 4 Pages

Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding is a novel in which the subjects of savagery versus civilization is explored. In the midst of World War II, a group of British school boys land on an uninhabited island after their plane crashes. Serving as a microcosm for the current state of the world, the novel demonstrates two major themes; man’s inclination toward evil and violence as well as man’s desire for social and political order. Golding illustrates these themes through the boys’ battle for survival and order along with the development of symbols throughout the story. In Lord of the Flies, the conch, the Lord of the Flies, and the fire are a few of the symbols employed in an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature and savagery.

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In the text, “Treatise on Tolerance” by Francois-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire, he implored Christians on 1763 of religion understanding and tolerance. Through series of comparisons, Voltaire demonstrated religion hypocrisy utilizing religion to incite violence and persecutions. First, he identified with Christians through narratives which demonstrated similarities between religion. Then, he measured the existence of men as minute compared immensity of the theological ideas. These similarities and measurements of men implored not only religious tolerance but also to stop using violence or persecution to nonbelievers.

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