Symbols And Savagery In Lord Of The Flies By William Golding

Lord of the Flies by William Golding takes place on a deserted island during a fictional war with young boys aged from six to twelve. The boys devise their own form of government and try their best to survive with each other. I think this story takes place during the mid-1900s since none of the boys mentioned anything more technologically advanced than televisions and radios. This book is told in third-person omniscient point of view, I can tell because the perspective bounces around to see what some individuals are doing and focuses on their thoughts. This narrator is quite reliable because they’re not biased against certain characters and we can see the story unfold without a filter. I think the main theme in Lord of the Flies is civilization. In the beginning, Ralph and Piggy finds a conch shell, and that is what they use to call “meetings”. During those meetings they assign different people to do different things, such as a chief, hunters, fire-tenders, hut builders, and multiple other assignments. As the story unravels, the readers can see the instincts of different boys; even though they all started quite peaceful and and orderly, some of their attitudes change. For example, Jack and his hunters after they’ve killed their first prey. Most of the boys eventually revert to “savagery”, some just take longer than others. Ralph …show more content…
The fire was mentioned throughout the book, it’s the thing that gave them hope, security and a sense of civilization. Although the fire isn’t always good, their first signal fire ended up going out of control, meaning even good things can turn bad, which is exactly what happened to the boys. Ironically, the war fire Jack set off to kill Ralph is what saved all of them, but if this story does take place during a war, that just means the boys are going to be trained as soldiers and go off to war, so even if they were rescued, they are still going into a world of