Who Is Piggy In Lord Of The Flies

In Lord of the Flies, the character “Piggy” portrays a fat boy who is an outsider on the island with poor eyesight and asthma. The others do not admire Piggy that much, especially Jack, who thinks of him as a joke. Although Piggy has many obstacles, he is the most intellectual among the boys and supports the leader, Ralph.

At the beginning of the novel, when Piggy and Ralph meet after the plane crash, Piggy is described as “very fat”(Golding 7), with specs and asthma. His physical shape and asthma disables him to defend himself and be as agile as the others, this is shown when Piggy tells Ralph that if he got out of the way, Jack would hurt Piggy. Also, the other boys do not take Piggy serious enough. For example, when he tells Ralph what the kids at his school used to call him, “Ralph shrieked with laughter”(Golding 12).

They symbolize intellect and logic, the specs are also used for starting the fire, “'Piggy's specs!' shouted Ralph. 'If the fire's all out, we'll need them-'”(Golding 94). One of the lenses on Piggy's specs are broken when Jack slaps his head and the glasses fly off and hit a rock. This shows that Jack can easily harm Piggy and could be a foreshadow for his death and the lack of intellect and logic that comes. The character, Roger, kills Piggy by purposely leaning on a large rock that falls and strikes him. He died after trying to reason with the hunters while holding the conch, which also got shattered by the