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Lord Of The Flies Piggy Essay

857 Words4 Pages

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see

“Its is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent but the one most responsive to change.” -Charles Darwin. The character Piggy in William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies serves as the intellectual balance to the emotional leaders of a group of shipwrecked British boys, but he himself is not able to cope with the idea of change and fear is what holds him back. Their new society does not care about Piggy’s intellectual talents instead they value physical strength more, as they believe it is their key to survival. Lord of the Flies is a novel which has many hidden symbols to what each character represents. Piggy is a character which can be connected with …show more content…

Without Piggy this would have never been possible as his glasses help create the fire. As Ralph is in control the fire stays on and there is a hope that he boys will act civilized and stick together, but once the fire is turned of the only one that still has a desire to get rescued is Piggy as all the other boys attempt to change their life style and accept their fate. The signal fire thus functions as a kind of measurement of the strength of the civilized instinct remaining on the island. Ironically, at the end of the novel, a fire finally summons a ship to the island, but not the signal fire. Instead, it is the fire of savagery the forest fire Jack’s gang starts as part of his quest to hunt and kill Ralph.

To conclude in the story Lord of the Flies written by William Golding Piggy represents the intellectual part of society, control and laws and order of the adult world and civilization.
Piggy uses his glasses to look through, and looking is a metaphor for knowledge, sadly the boys value physical attributes more than intellectual attributes and take his glasses or “sight” away from him which is all he has, this scene foreshadows his death. therefor unfortunately Piggy is not able to survive on the island as he is not capable of changing and adapting to it.

Philipp

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