Golding Lord Of The Flies Symbolism Analysis

Throughout history and literature, symbols have been used to represent the bigger picture or main ideas. This allows the reader to illustrate the symbol in their head and have a much better overall understanding of the book. A number of times during Golding’s Lord of the Flies, he uses symbols to illustrate the boys’ destruction and fall from order into savagery. The regression of the boys’ civilization is evident through Golding’s symbolic use of the conch shell, the signal fire and the beastie. All are critical for expressing Golding’s overall message. To start, the representation of the boys’ civilization begins with the omnipotent conch shell. The boys soon establish the conch as a symbol of law and order. All the boys agree and enjoy

Through maintaining such procedures they are able to divide duties and maintain the fire while collecting food. For the most part, it allowed them to stay up to par with the civilized standards prevalent in British society. Unfortunately for the boys’ livelihood, the significance of the conch soon dissolves. As time goes on the boys lose sight of the conch and care less and less for it. Slowly but surely, slipping away from civilization and closer to savagery. The island’s civilization erodes and the boys descend into savagery. Losing sight of order is shown when Jack disobeys Ralph’s orders to be quiet when Piggy has the conch, and despite Ralph informing him of the rules, he still disobeys “The rules! You 're breaking the rules! Shouted Ralph. “Who cares?” replied Jack. This signals the beginning of savagery setting in, and society breaking. The island’s civilization erodes and the boys descend into savagery. The destruction of law and order then hits its climax when the conch is ultimately destroyed. This happens when Roger maliciously rolls the massive

At first, the beast is nothing more than a product of the boys ' imaginations. The smaller boys are afraid of things they see at night; rather than be blindly afraid of The Great Unknown, they give their fear a name and a shape in their minds.The boys fear the beast not even realizing that the are committing the evil actions of the beast. Only Simon reaches the final realization of what the beast for what it truly is, their own evil existing inside of them when he says “Maybe there is a beast… maybe it 's only us.”. Paradoxically, immediately following Simon’s awareness of the beast he is murdered **quote** ; signifying the destruction of natural human instinct and civilized instinct. As the boys grow more savage, their belief in the beast grows stronger. By the end of the novel, the boys are leaving it sacrifices and treating it as a totemic god. The boys’ behavior is what brings the beast into existence, so the more savagely the boys act, the more real the beast seems to become. says the beast is just fear of the unknown: "I know there isn 't no beast—not with claws and all that, I mean—but I know there isn 't no fear, either" (5.99). Simon, on the other hand, insists that the beast is "only us" (5.195). Well, it is: it 's a person that fell from the sky. Ralph and Jack see it as a giant ape. So the "beast" is a man-who-isn 't, the animal side in