Literature Analysis #3: Lord of The Flies

Lord of The Flies shows the major struggle between your civilized morals, and how far someone is willing to go to survive. In the midst of a war, a plane full of young boys was shot down and crashed on an island. In the beginning the young boys are overjoyed with the feelings of independence and freedom. Two of the boys, who were about twelve years old, named Ralph and Piggy were together and decided to use a conch shell to call anyone else on the island over to them. They picked a leader, assigned jobs, and appeared to be efficient. After exploring the island, they felt like they had discovered their own land. That feeling soon fades to fear. The struggles of hunting, keeping up a fire, and surviving on their own set in. When they don't have food and the fire went out right as a ship was passing, they start to blame each other. A fear of a monster starts to spread and soon enough all the boys are paranoid. They start turning on each other, and trying to kill each other. Before everyone dies.. they are rescued by a British naval officer.

A major theme is the loss of innocence. In the beginning all these boys were carefree. They didn't really worry about their situation. They would go swimming all day, explore the island, and play games. As time went on they soon had to grow up and start thinking about their situation which was literally life or death. As the struggles of surviving started setting in, their insoucient lifestyle was traded in for fear, betrayal, and paranoia.

William Golding's tone was very dark. When he would describe the boys it was very violent and chaotic. The details he used when describing the death of animals gave it a creepy feel almost. The way Golding writes definatley adds to the suspense. The way he describes things makes it seem like something bad is always gonna happen.
"Within the irregular arc of coral the lagoon was still as a mountain lake-blue of all shades and shadowy green and purple."

Literary techniques:

*Imagery- imagery was really important in this book because it helps you to really grasp the concept of 6-12 year old boys on an island killing each other.
"Then he leapt back on the terrace, pulled off his shirt, and stood there among the skull-like coconuts with green shadows from the palms and the forest sliding over his skin."-pg 10

*Metaphor-  "The beach between the palm terrace and the water was a thin stick.
The island in itself is a metaphor to hell. Also the pig head on a spear that the boys began to worship and refer to as "lord of the flies" because of all the flies that swarmed around it was pretty creepy...

*Foreshadowing- "Beyond the platform there was more enchantment. Some act of God- a typhoon perhaps, or the storm that had accompanied his own arrival-"

*Symbolism- A huge symbol in the book was the pink conch shell. It symbolized community, it was the one thing that brought them all together in the beginning and created a sense of civilization. When the conch shell was broken that showed that any sense of community and civilization was gone. The one thing that brought them together was been destroyed.
"The conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist." pg. 181

*Characterization- The character of Piggy was described as a fat, twelve year old boy, who wore thick glasses. His real name was never mentioned which adds the book's sense of mystery and darkness.
"He was shorter than the fair boy and very fat... looked up through thick spectacles."