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Sow's Head In Lord Of The Flies Essay

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The Lord of Flies by William Golding has many symbols of evil, one of which is the sow’s head. William Golding uses the image of the sow’s head as a figure to lead the reader to understand the parallel of human evil and the evil that Satan represents in the bible. The sow’s head, represents savagery, innate evil in human beings, and a Satan figure. The image of it is a major symbol to move the reader along in the battle between civilization and savagery. First, the overwhelming savagery of the pig hunt makes the trophy of the sow’s head the appearance of evil. The beast is an imaginary creature that the boys have made up to symbolize their fear. It implies that to kill without reason is pure savagery, and it also is foreshadowing of the death of Simon. Simon likewise understands that the other boys have lost all reason and they resort to violence to appease the beast. “The half-shut eyes were dim with infinite cynicism of adult life. They assured Simon that everything was a bad business.”(Golding 192). The barbarity of the symbol indicates a loss of innocence and the emergence of pure innate evil. The next …show more content…

The discussion between the voice coming from the sow’s head and Simon parallels the discussion between Lucifer and Jesus in the bible. “A gift for the beast. Might not the beast come for it? The head, he thought, appeared to agree with him. Run away, said the head silently, go back to the others.”(Golding 192). In the bible Satan temps Jesus to give up and the story Lord of Flies implies that the sow’s head was trying to get Simon to give up. Simon is the only character who is inherently good so this is the reason behind the temptation of evil to defeat good. As stated in the Holy Bible, “If you the Son of God, He said, throw yourself down.” (Matthew 4:6). William Golding uses the relationship between the two different stories to show that the Devil is present in the exchange with Simon and the Lord of

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He goes into great detail while describing the gruesome murder of Simon. He also uses Pathos to develop Piggy's character. We feel bad for Piggy because he is a genuine human being, and the other boys constantly make fun of him. Golding writes “At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore...blood was staining the sand”(pg.153). This makes the reader feel empathy towards Simon, who has done nothing wrong.

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Maybe it’s only us.” (89) Simon intellectually realizes that the beast lies in every single person and that they all have the capacity for evil doings as well as good. This type of thinking is more abstract than what is exhibited in past levels. For example if Simon’s moral development

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While Simon saw the Lord of the Flies he heard a message that tortures him that “Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill”(143). This demonstrates Simon’s breakthrough that the beast is not real, it cannot be hunted or killed. This further expresses Golding’s belief that the evil or the beast is not a figure which could not be destroyed. While Simon stared at the sow’s head, he heard “You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you”(143).

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Golding wrote his death in this way purposely, so that Simon would look as if he was being resurrected, but in reality he is just drifting out to sea, and his body will decompose and fish will eat him, along with the Angelic looking creatures on him pulling him to sea. His message did not endure, as the boys just killed him and ran away, none of them hearing that he freed the island from the corruption of the dead man. Simon’s role as a failed Christ figure was shown by his crucifixion, “resurrection”, and his failure to get the boys to listen to his message of freeing them from corruption. His violent death did not make him a martyr as Christ was, he would only to be thought of as a batty boy who died on the island.

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You know perfectly well you’ll only meet me down there—so don’t try to escape!’” (Golding 143), he understands that there is no way he can avoid his vices. Simon’s direct discussion with his evil correlates to the identical evil found in all of the

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Everyone will face evil at some point in their lives, but the way the evil is embraced or deflected will differ among every man. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, symbolism is used to communicate the theme of Understanding the Inhumanity/Inherent Evil of Man as represented through the double ended spear, the fire, and the Lord of the Flies. The spear represents the evil inside of humankind and the perception that killing and hurting each other out of anger is acceptable. Fire symbolizes the evil act of stealing to achieve a human wants. Lastly, the Lord of the Flies symbolizes the Inherent Evil of Man through demonstrating that a boy understood that the evil is within them instead of around them, and is not something that could be killed

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In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the Lord of the Flies signifies the power of evil and violence within people. When Simon imagines the pig’s head speaking to him, the pig’s head implies, “I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are? ” (143). The Lord of the Flies symbolizes chaos and corruption that’s caused by the boys on the island.

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This shows that the boys are only afraid of themselves, because they are their own worst enemy. He is the first to figure out that the beast is not an actual beast, and how it is only the boys becoming savage, and starting to be afraid of one another. As Simon began to explain this to the doubtful boys, he was the only one who died knowing the

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Lord of the Flies remains Golding’s most accredited piece of work. It is an apparently simple but densely layered novel that has been categorized as fiction, fable, a myth, and a tale. Generous use of symbolism in Golding’s work is what distinguishes him with other authors of the same genre. For example, the conch shell, that represents a vulnerable hold of authority which was finally shattered to pieces with Piggy’s death. Secondly, for the other boys, Piggy’s eyeglasses represented the lack of intelligence which was later defeated by superstition and savagery.

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The conch and the sow’s head both wield a specific type of power over the juvenile boys in Lord of the Flies. The conch, used to call assemblies, represents progress and civilization while the sow’s head represents terror, barbarity, and malevolence and is partly to blame for Simon’s demise. Lord of the Flies is a novel about power because throughout the book Jack and Ralph quarrel over who should be the chieftain of the children and the novel uses the conch and the sow’s head to represent divergent forms of power and authority. Also, the book shows the reader the power of symbols such as the conch and the pig’s head and even the island that the children remain inevitably imprisoned on until their liberation at the conclusion of the novel. Just about everything within this novel is a representation of something that is considerably greater.

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A second example of Simon's prophetic powers occurs when he passes out "inside the mouth" of the pig, foretelling his own death (144). Just prior to Simon's death, he comes stumbling out of the woods, and the circle of savagely chanting boys opens into a "horseshoe"(152). The horseshoe shape represents the opening in the pig's mouth where Simon passes out. This foreshadows Simon's own demise.

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In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, there are many symbolic concepts within the novel such as the beast, and the pigs head. Golding uses these concepts to portray to the reader his idea that when humans are left without rules or organisation they will break from a civilised manner and become savages allowing evil to over take them. One of the most important symbols used to help the reader understand Golding's idea is the beast. Many of the boys believe their is a beast on the island and become fearful.

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Literary Analyses of the Lord of the Flies The Lord of the Flies demonstrates a wide variety of symbolism; from Christ to Satan the children are portrayed in an abstract manner to represent these religious beings, as well as a symbol of great strife for power. Two of the main symbolic devices are used in the form of a mystical Conch and a cumbersome Sow’s head perched atop a stake; however these symbols represent very different ideas. Next the Lord of the Flies demonstrates the burden and struggle of power in multiple ways. William Golding included within this novel the power of symbolism, using inanimate objects, characters, or even landmasses to represent ideals derived from basic human morals and Christian religion that has a major influence

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In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the head of the pig becomes an ongoing and important symbol. When Jack goes hunting, he is able to kill a mother pig. He cuts off its head, places it on a stick and the pig's head becomes an offering for the beast. The pig's head represents the evil and violence that lies within the boys, it also shows a loss of innocence in the boys and it represents the title of the novel, ‘Lord of the Flies’.

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The boys interaction with the sow demonstrates their loss of morality through Jack's actions. “Jack held up the head and jammed the soft throat down on the pointed end of the stick … a little blood dribbling down the stick” (Golding 136-137). There was a major use of imagery, which helped to set an ominous mood, in Golding's description of the sow's head being mounted for the beast. Jack uses this act to to his advantage, scaring the boys even further into the places of his devoted savage-servants. Simon's death was one of the boys ultimate losses of morality.

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