Analysis of Lord of the Flies
William Golding’s dark masterpiece Lord of the Flies initially portrays a group of normal young boys, stranded on an island due to a plane crash, who eventually evolve into savage versions of themselves. It is fight between savagery and civilization, and Golding skillfully questions the notion which is innate to human beings: are we civilized beings by nature or is civilized behavior only imposed on us, while in essence, we are nothing more than animals? Golding’s answer is all too plain and tragic.
In the beginning, the boys successfully manage to organize their stranded group and create a small society, reminiscent of the one they used to belong to, in Britain. Ralph, the initially chosen leader, and Piggy find a conch shell on the beach, which will be used to summon the boys to a gathering, and it stands as a powerful symbol of democratic power, because it allows its holder to speak, once the gathering has started. As the boys turn to savagery, the conch shell slowly loses its power over them, until it is finally crushed by a boulder, along with the innocent Piggy, which symbolizes the utter demise of the civilized instinct in the boys on the island.He questi By using Piggy’s glasses, yet another symbol of science and civilization, the boys manage to make a signal fire. It serves as a potent symbol of the boys’ desire to be rescued, as long as they make sure it is burning, they do wish to return to civilization. Lamentably, he signal fire that will eventually save them will not be the one lit up by Piggy’s glasses, but a fire lit up by savage motives: Jack, the self-proclaimed, tyrannical leader who opposed the democratic rule of Ralph, and his followers set the forest on fire in their effort to hunt down and murder Ralph.
The imaginary beast that the boys encounter on the island stands as a symbol of the dark, evil, primal instinct in every single one of us. While the littluns give their ideas on where the beast is hiding, the pure-hearted Simon perceives the truth: “What I mean is. Maybe it’s only us” (Golding 63). With this, he proposes the idea that the beast is the dark side of their own selves, and an indispensable part of human nature, which is why “no human society is completely without evil” (Spitz 33). As the boys become more savage, the fear of the beast becomes more powerful; their savagery is the life blood of the beast, which they are treating as a god, even leaving it bloody sacrifices.
Finally, they meet a symbolically physical embodiment of the beast: The Lord of the Flies, which is a sow’s head, impaled on a stick, by Jack, as an offering to the beast. In an imagined conversation it has with Simon, the beast even acknowledges its presence in all human beings: “I’m part of you” (Golding 107). When the poor, doomed Simon tries to reveal this to the other boys, the level of savagery they were at was already too consuming, and through a tragic mistake, they thought Simon was the beast, they kill one of the rare, sensible boys in their group who could have told them how wrong they were and set them straight.
In this novel, Golding tried to convey the idea of the innate defects of human society; that our morals should not be imposed on us, but rather that they should come from our own understanding of good and bad. Because, if morals are merely imposed on an individual, the ethical nature of this particular individual is defective and the moment he does not find himself under the thumb of the morally oppressive society, it will regress to its innate, savage nature. It is exactly like Golding says at the end: “Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart” (Golding 152).
References:
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: The Berkeley Publishing Group, 1954. Print.
Spitz, David. “Power and Authority: An Interpretation of Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies.’” The Antioch Review. Vol. 30, No. 1 (1970): 21-33. Web. 26 Jan. 2012.
