Lord of the Flies (Summer Assignment)
Plot Structure and Organization
William Golding’s story in “Lord of the Flies” is built around the flaws of society/ the rise and fall of society.
-Starting with the arrival of a group of boys on an uninhabited island, Ralph (the protagonist) and a (logical thinking but physically useless) fat boy named piggy, find a conch. Ralph uses the conch to assemble all the lost boys on the island. This assembly of boys vote Ralph their leader, over (the antagonist) Jack. Ralph then assigns Jack to be the head hunter and puts him in charge of a small group of boys. Ralph then decides that fire is the most important thing that must be done and assigns boys to keep watch at sea, and tend to this fire.
At this point the jobs of this society have been designated put in place and if everyone does their jobs right survival till rescue seems to be accomplishable.
-Then Ralph decides that all the boys must help build shelters, which took quite a while. Jack focuses on hunting and doesn’t catch anything, time, and time again. After the first shelters the following two were built almost completely built by Ralph and a boy named Simon (who’s loyal, hardworking, but lacks leadership). Around this time many of the younger boys were become fearful of a mysterious beast which seemed to change form almost nightly.
The beast causes the emotion of fear to rise up in all the boys at some point. This fear is irrational and contradicts the coolness of society. The other main problem is Ralph frustration of how Simon and him are the only ones being responsible and how they are doing all the work.
-This is when Jack realizes pulls two twin boys Sam’n’Eric away from fire duty to help him hunt. Sadly this decision cost all the boys a chance to be rescued, for no one was tending to the signal fire when a boat passed by. When Jack returns with the killed pig Ralph is furious and a there was a huge despute. This is when one of the lenses in Piggy’s glasses is broken. Jack humiliated declares himself as the leader of his own new tribe. This tribe will only hunt and play, and live in a rock fort on a cliffside. This new tribe gains huge popularity until only Ralph, Simon, Piggy, and Sam’n’Eric are left.
The breaking of piggy’s glasses shows the fall of society and its value in the boys.
- Jack and his tribe go hunting and kill the largest and fattest sow, a mother pig. Mean while Simon goes off during this time and has a vision of what the beast really is, and how it’s the savagery that exists in all the boys.
The new feelings the boys experience with the exhilaration and thrill of the kill, arouse certain feelings like bloodlust and violence in Jack’s tribe. The killing of the sow represents the fall of innocence.
- At the feast that night with all the boys chanting and hyped up (almost mob like) Simon immerges from the forest and is misinterpreted by the group as being the beast. The groups of boys kill Simon while Ralph and Piggy stand outside the circle watching. The next night Jack raids Ralph’s group and steal piggy’s glasses. Ralph, Piggy, and Sam’n’Eric go to Jack’s fort. Jack refuses to return Piggy’s glasses or help tend to a signal fire. Jack’s tribe then captures Sam’n’Eric. This is when a rock falls from the fort and hurls both Piggy and the conch off the cliff and into the rocks down below.
Piggy’s dying and the destruction of conch represent the death of society by savages.
The next day Jack and all his tribe go on an island wide man hunt to kill Ralph. They try to smoke him out by setting the island on fire. Ralph who is frantic by this point runs for his life. He finally emerges onto the beach with no where left to go, he see a naval officer who’s there to rescue them. The tale ends with Ralph weeping over Piggy, Simon, the fall of society, and the knowledge of the savagery in all humans.
Theme
The theme of Lord of the Flies in essence is how the nature of society isn’t as deeply rooted in humans as savagery. This can clearly be seen in the rise and fall of the society of boys.
Piggy: Piggy (the most logical one of the group) is the one that never really fits in with the other boys. Piggy clings to the idea that society can work, symbolized by him always hold/protecting the conch.
Ralph: The voted leader is always looking out for the best of the group and trying to maintain order in the group. His ability to remain above the temptation of savagery is the thing that separates him from Jack. Toward the end, the more Ralph clings to civility and society the more power he loses with the boys.
Simon: Simon represents a completely different point of view. He shows compassion to all the littler kids, and he quietly observes what is going on. It is during his vision with the Sow head that he realizes that the beast isn’t an actual monster but the savagery that lies in each of the boys on the island.
Jack: Jack is so focused on the present and follows his emotions rather than his head. He focuses entirely on the idea of hunting. When he finally does make a kill he embraces the power to take life, feeds on the thrill of violence. His new tribe is completely built on a power structure where no one is above or equal to him. He controls the boy’s fear of the beast, and is doing so controls the boys (much like religion). Jack becomes more powerful the more he embraces savagery
The theme in Lord of the Flies lies within each of the boys, the fall of society and the rise of savagery.
Literary Devices
Golding’s main literary devices are symbolism, personification, repetition, and imagery. The Symbolism in Lord of the Flies is obvious between the characters, the conch, or Piggy’s glasses. The personification is seen between a combination of the beast and the sow head vision. The repetition comes from whenever a kill is made, and the savagery of the boys is unleashed with the chant “Kill the beast! Cut the throat! Spill the Blood!”. Though my personal favorite of all Golding’s literary devices is imagery. Golding’s true strength in his writing is how he is able to paint such a vivid picture in the readers mind. He uses imagery to not only set the scene but capture the mood, and the caught up feelings in that moment. When Jack and his tribe kill the sow the imagery was magnificent and the mood/feelings were perfect. The setting of the hunt, the pack of defenseless prey, and the following chase of the hunt were described with such perfection. The mood of the overcoming and unaccustomed emotions associated with murder and death was also just captured perfectly. Though there are other examples of Golding’s use of imagery I felt that the hunt was his strongest.
Style
I find William Golding’s style of writing to be very conforming to that of the narration of the character. The view point of the narrator changes his style drastically in my opinion. When Ralph first arrived, Golding’s style was to describe everything before acting. Golding seemed to only want to talk about what was happening around Ralph but ignore Ralph as a human being, and use him rather as the device through which he’s story is told. (I realize that all books most set the scene but Golding kept describing to a T the locations over and over again, and all the details of many of the characters around Ralph. His writing style was just much more descriptive than many of the others authors I have come across. Eventually the reader does get inside Ralph’s head, but it’s not really till the middle of Chapter 2).
I believe Golding style is to offer his readers options. So as the book progressed he had Jack and Simon each narrate, giving the reader different was to approach his book from. Golding style with Simon was one that was supposed to be similar to that of an epiphany. He wanted to straight talk to his readers, and by using a side character instead of Ralph he was able to do so without compromising his story telling.
Golding’s tone through out the entire story had was in a dark way very depressing, I’m not sure if he meant to come across that way, or if it’s the nature of the beast (hahaha a pun). Overall Golding’s style was one that focused on view point and imagery.
