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Theme Of Survival In Lord Of The Flies

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Have you ever been put in a life or death situation? In this book Lord of the Flies by William Golding, there was a plane with several boys aboard who have crashed onto a non-civilized island and they were put in that exact situation. They needed to find a way to survive, so they figured out how to make a fire, find food, and build shelter. In chapter 2 of Lord of the Flies, “Fire on the Mountain” is the title of the chapter considering the boys figure out a resourceful survival skill. The boys figure out that the only way to be saved is by building a signal fire. Furthermore, they gather as much wood as they can. “Ralph moved the lenses back and forth, this way and that, till a glossy white image of the declining sun lay on a piece of rotten wood. Almost at once a thin trickle of smoke rose up and made him cough” (Page 41). This quote exhibits that they made a fire to keep them warm and then later made another fire to signal airplanes passing over the island with the smoke. This survival skill was a great idea because Ralph used Piggy’s glasses to create the fire. In chapter 4 of Lord of the Flies Jack is very determined to …show more content…

"But we want meat!” said Jack. “And I work all day with nothing but Simon and you come back and don't even notice the huts!' said Ralph. "I was working too-" said Jack. "But you like it!" shouted Ralph. "You want to hunt! While I-" They faced each other on the bright beach, astonished at the rub of feeling. Ralph looked away first, pretending interest in a group of littluns on the sand” (page 54). This quote demonstrates that Ralph and Jack didn’t get along very well because Ralph wanted help building the huts and Jack wanted the rush of a hunt. However, this was another flaw in their society that was atrocious. It was wonderful they found how to make shelter, but awful because they would argue all the

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“When we was coming down I looked through one of them windows. I saw the other part of the plane. There were flames coming out of it”(Golding 8). The novel “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding starts with a group of boys whom their plane is shot down, as the story takes place in World War Two. The British boys are stranded on the island with no adults around.

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In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, a group of boys land on an uninhabited island in the midst of an unnamed war. Jack Merridew, the leader of the choir boys, insists on the boys following rules in the beginning and still inhabits the mindset that there are consequences and rewards for actions. Jack attempts to be leader but Ralph, a fair-haired 12 year old boy, wins the vote. Jack makes it his job to hunt and get meat for the rest of the boys. Jack becomes so invested in the hunt that he neglects the fire and ruins their chance to get home because a ship was on the horizon.

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Ralph proposes that they build a fire at the top of mountain on the island so that if ships were to pass by they would see the fire and potentially rescue them. Although they fail at keeping the fire going at first, Jack and his hunters nominate themselves to make sure the fire keeps going. As they attempt to reignite the fire, it results in trees nearby being set ablaze. Golding describes the fire in a way of giving it animal-like movements: “the fire laid hold on the forest and began to gnaw.”(44) In this quotation he foreshadows that eventually power and fear will start to eat away at the civilization the boys have created with each other and in their own minds.

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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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While arguing with Jack, Ralph shouts, ‘“But you like it!”... “While I-”’ (54). Ralph would love to do anything else. He’s envious of Jack, who enjoys what he does. He’s envious of everyone who just left their responsibilities to go play or hunt.

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In the middle of the story, Piggy discusses, “We got no fire on the mountain. But what’s wrong with a fire down here? A fire could be built on them rocks. On the sand, even. We’d make smoke just the same” (129).

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At first the fire was used as a signal in order to try and save the boys, making it a tool for success to return them to the normal world. Ralph proclaims “We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us.” (Golding). Furthermore, in the novel, the fire becomes a source of comfort for the boys, providing them with warmth and usefulness as a source of light and method to cook food.

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Following Jack’s raid of Ralph’s camp, Ralph says, “The fire is the most important thing on the island. How can we ever be rescued except by luck, if we don’t keep a fire going? Is a fire too much for us to make?” Ralph’s emphasis on the importance

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Ralph is trying to get everyone on the island organized and they each would have a role but Jack wants to take over the island and rule it. The dictator in Jack becomes dominant in his personality during the panic over the beast sighting on the mountain. In trying to get Ralph impeached, he uses his rhetorical skills to twist Ralph's words. In defense, he offers to the group a rationale that "He'd never have got us meat," asserting that hunting skills make for an effective leader.

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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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Lord of the Flies Essay Coming of Age is a very scary and unfamiliar experience that eventually happens to us all. This transition can be both physical and metaphorical. As demonstrated in the book Lord of the Flies, this transition often comes sooner than we would like. In the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding symbolism is used to communicate theme of Coming of Age through many different symbols such as choosing a leader, the conch shell, and the island.

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In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, authority is needed to create hope on the island, without hope, death is sure to arrive. Knowing that, to be saved Ralph makes a signal fire, “If a ship comes near the island they might not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the island. We must make fire.” (Golding 37).

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Ralph says, “The fire is the most important thing on the island. How can we ever be rescued except by luck, if we don’t keep a fire going? Is a fire too much for us to make” (80). As an effort to show the boys their dire circumstances, he tries to convict them, including himself, of their ignorance. On the contrary, Jack Merridew counters Ralph’s authority with the proposition of thrill and amusement.

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They will do anything and everything in their power to stay alive, regardless of who they might harm in the process. That is true human nature exhibited here in the text, the selfishness that consumes humans in the event that they are faced with a life-threatening situation. There is also representation of fire throughout Lord of the Flies, which reveals much about human nature. The fire is the object that they put all their hope for being rescued into. The fire that the boys created pushed away the darkness and their fears about the beast, bringing light to the darkest of times, quite literally.

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Fear is what you make of it because nothing is inherently scary it is what you take from the object or experience that makes it scary and fills your head with fear. This can have an effect on society and how people and their respective governments react to types of issues and problems. This leads to in extreme cases war and mass murder of a society that is being exploited as a scapegoat. In the book Lord of the Flies the author William Golding suggest the impact fear has on human nature and how it disrupts order and disorder in a society.

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