Imagine a plane that crash land on a tropical island with a fairly large group of boys, with no adult supervision during World War II. Lord of the Flies by William Golding is an exact example of this scenario with a young boy named Ralph. Ralph is an English boy; tall, fair, and handsome. His character traits are a good leader, a good friend for those who help, and a genuinely nice person. Also, Ralph represents law and government. In this literary analysis, it will explain the fictional society along with Ralph blowing the conch, a ship passing, and the beast appearing to Simon. The fictional society Ralph lives in is a tropical island with two kinds of people, Ralph’s and Jack’s people. The boys are from an English background. This is …show more content…
Jack decides to use them as hunters. This shows they are resourceful. Ralph later said “We can help them to find us. If a ship comes in it may not notice us so we must make smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire.”(Golding 33). The plan is to make a fire to help a ship see the smoke to be rescued. This shows Ralph as a leader because he wants him and the other boys rescued. This is important; it gives the boy’s hope. The fire also provides them with a …show more content…
This in shown when Jack’s boys start to chant: “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood ” (Golding 63). They are becoming addicted to ruthless killing. The full fledged chaos is let out when this happens. “The conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.” (Golding 167). The conch was destroyed. The conch was what bought them together in the first place and it represented order. After the conch was destroyed, hunters hunt Ralph. Ralph is the chief and lead in an orderly fashion and under his rule it was calm. Ralph would never hunt anyone
At first the fire was used as a signal in order to try and save the boys, making it a tool for success to return them to the normal world. Ralph proclaims “We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us.” (Golding). Furthermore, in the novel, the fire becomes a source of comfort for the boys, providing them with warmth and usefulness as a source of light and method to cook food.
Following Jack’s raid of Ralph’s camp, Ralph says, “The fire is the most important thing on the island. How can we ever be rescued except by luck, if we don’t keep a fire going? Is a fire too much for us to make?” Ralph’s emphasis on the importance
Ralph proposes that they build a fire at the top of mountain on the island so that if ships were to pass by they would see the fire and potentially rescue them. Although they fail at keeping the fire going at first, Jack and his hunters nominate themselves to make sure the fire keeps going. As they attempt to reignite the fire, it results in trees nearby being set ablaze. Golding describes the fire in a way of giving it animal-like movements: “the fire laid hold on the forest and began to gnaw.”(44) In this quotation he foreshadows that eventually power and fear will start to eat away at the civilization the boys have created with each other and in their own minds.
Ralph has noticed a drifting between the boys, due to both of him lacking leadership, and to the hunters’ growing free-spirited but crazy morals. He noticed the longer they were away from home, the more sanity they loss. Within the last few weeks, Ralph lost his two only friends due to the horrid actions of the hunters. Seeing Stanley killed for the humor of a hunter, and glimpsing at Simon being stabbed and torn apart both made Ralph realized that not only the voice of reason and justice is gone, but also their hope of redemption, to be rescued. Even after counseling and therapy, Ralph himself felt like those mere five weeks were dreading, endless years, as if he matured throughout time spent on the
In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, young boys get stranded on an island with no adults in the midst of a war. The boys were orderly and civilized in the beginning but then as they began killing pigs they slowly became savages and lost their civilization. The boys began turning on each other and the evil within them became present. Golding uses a variety of literary devices including personification, symbols, metaphors, and irony, to project the theme that pure and realistic people in the world can be unheard and destroyed by evil.
While walking, Ralph discovered a shell(the conch) which became quite useful early on. It gathered all the boys together and allowed for a society to be created. However,
1. But a sign came down from the world of grown-ups . . . (95) The significance of this quote is that a warning sign was sent to the island (plane, helicopter, or some flying vehicle) but none of the boys were awake so the “grownups” were unaware about their whereabouts. The fire had died down and so did the smoke (at this current point) for the grownups to see if anyone was stranded on the island.
The events of original evil which ironically issued positive results prove Ralph’s success as an individual in contrast to his responsibilities as a leader. Even though he finds trouble accepting his flaws as an untrusted leader, he uses his beliefs in self-importance to overlook the negative possibilities to his selfishness. Piggy recognizes Ralph’s individuality due to his lack of attention and care toward him concerning the respect of his appearance from the other boys on the island. Ralph’s introduction to the conch open the eyes of the boys to a new way of life and hopeful survival, while Jack’s approach to culture on the island institutes the idea of corruption. It is then distinctive that Ralph, “the being that had blown [the conch][...]was set apart” from the rest of the boys (Golding 22).
Realizing Ralph's reliance on the fire and in otherways Piggy, Piggy begins to trust Ralph to protect him from Jack. His insecurities cause him to obsess over the idea of the fire to show that he does have some importance, while the savages are focused on power and hunting. Golding uses the struggle of power to demonstrate how destructive it can be. The desire for power causes the boys' civilization the crumble, discord and rivalries, and ends up destroying their island.
At first they imagine that the Queen’s navy and great ships will come and rescue them, but near the end they know that they will not be rescued unless they keep a signal fire lit. Ralph first says “When he gets leave he’ll come and rescue us.” (pg 130). and in this case he is talking about his father. Later, he is adamant about keeping the fire lit because he has abandoned the thought that they will ever be rescued without the fire.
In the quote above, Ralph is attempting to hide when the boys pass by him. Jack however notices him and Ralph realizes this may be the end. Jack, along with his tribe and their spears and painted faces run down Ralph through the forest even setting it on fire. In the end Ralph ends up being saved by luck, running into an officer. If it were not for the officer, Jack’s evilness would have got the best of him, and Ralph would not have survived.
Out there. You’d said you’d keep the fire going and you let it out,” (Golding 70). It was his job along with hunters to keep the fire going and he couldn’t do that .This was their chance to get rescued and Jack ruined that. It seems that Jack’s priority wasn’t to be rescued. This was the start of Jack and Ralph’s hostility.
In Lord of the Flies, Ralph was one of the most civil characters, he was level-headed and recognized the need to be rescued, as well as the need for a leader. Which is why he accepted to be the
Reading response:Extended text: fiction Lord of the flies The book is about a plane crashes causing the only survivors and a group of schoolboys without adult supervision, trapped on a desert island waiting for rescue. Initially, when I read the beginning of the story, the boys have elected Ralph to be the leader and settled some rules to maintain order in the island. At first, I thought this is a children's adventure story where the children had get along and rescued by their teamwork and it ends up happily. In fact, after reading more the middle part of the book, the positive picture of my images had been smashed up, problems getting more and more.
Lord of the Flies Analysis Lord of the Flies, written 1954 by British Author William Golding, is a tale of a group of young boys who find themselves stranded after their plane crash lands on a deserted island. The boys, who at first, attempt to set up a society, complete with a form of government, soon fall apart when their primitive urges kick in. The novel was both a commentary on man’s violent nature and of how pointless war is. Also, each character in the novel was representative of a larger concept, thus this allegory had many layers.