Corruption In Lord Of The Flies

Corrupt. The act of dishonesty in personal gain for self reward. When the word “corrupt” comes into mind, one thinks of evil or chaos, selfishness or unloyalty. These acts are taking over logic and reasoning faster than ever before. In the novel, a group of schoolboys are flown out of a war zone and eventually crash into an isolated island. In the first few nights, the boys work together and focus on their teamwork and try their best to keep a signal fire going to get rescued. But as time goes by, a few of the boys start to turn “savage” and overtake any sort of logic and reasoning… All teamwork seems to disappear and nobody seems to want to help anyone but themselves… William Golding compares this to society and demonstrates that if there …show more content…
“That’s right. Can’t catch my breath. I was the only boy in our school who had asthma. And I’ve been wearing specs since I was three.” But since his body structure comes across as fat, or nonathletic, the kids automatically give him no supremacy or really even pay attention to him. They all consider him as a joke or a fool and think his ideas are “useless” and if his ideas are ever used, his credit is taken by Ralph. The boy who looks like a leader. “You’re chief. You tell em’ off.” (51) In society, that is how almost all of us act. As long as a leader looks as though he is strong, intelligent, or “knows the way,” they will be elected as leader. Piggy’s death is also a huge symbol in society. As Jack and his tribe finally start to take over the island, Piggy is really only the last source of intelligence and Jack has Roger kill it. Piggy symbolizes logic or reasoning and how fast savagery can really take over anything good in society as long as the people in the world (Roger) are willing to …show more content…
Such as intelligence. Or maybe hope for rescue. Or logic and reasoning. In the novel when Piggy's glasses break, it may seem like not such a big factor of symbolism, but it's one of the biggest symbols in the book. Jack is the character who breaks his glasses. (71) He is also represents chaos and evil. The breaking of Piggy's glasses symbolizes the beginning of savagery starting to take over the island… It demonstrates that in society, whenever there is logic and reason presented anywhere, chaos and evil will push it away. “Piggy’s glasses flew off and tinkled on the rocks”. The “beast” inside of us all will reject the fact that it is ok for someone else besides us to have a good idea. That it is okay to give someone else credit for something that we did not do. Piggy's glasses also can represent hope. “His specs! Use them as burning glasses!” Ralph had the idea to set a signal fire but the boys did not know how to start it. So they used Piggy's glasses as a magnifying glass to use the sun rays and start the fire. If it wasn’t for his glasses, they would not have gotten the fire going. So the glasses can also fall under the “hope of and rescue”