Powerlessness In Lord Of The Flies

Powerful or Powerless

The novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding is an interesting novel that shows many different circumstances that happen to civilization, for better or for worse, through the actions of children. Ralph, the main character, opens the novel up with Piggy. The two boys are strolling through the woods on this island that they have been stranded on. They had survived a horrible plane crash, fleeing the land that they came from, hoping to find somewhere safer to stay. From their knowledge, there were no adults that survived this crash, but there were other boys on the island that they have yet to meet. By coincidence, they found this perfect conch shell in a pond nearby, and they summoned up their first meeting. After

As stated before, Piggy is clearly the heaviest of the boys, and more than once, Jack called Piggy “Fatty”(21). In this way, Piggy almost immediately loses power and respect. You can see this when Ralph tells Jack Piggy’s name, but more so in Piggy’s reaction after the fact. Piggy ended up confronting Ralph about how he didn’t want to be called Piggy, but Ralph blatantly disobeyed and told everyone that Piggy is what he was called. In Ralph’s defense, he is “Better Piggy than Fatty” (25). Part of Piggy’s appearance is his glasses, and they constantly get Piggy harassed or bullied, Without the aid of his glasses, Piggy is practically blind, and as a metaphorical aspect, Golding tries to tell us that Piggy is blind to the word if he isn’t wearing his glasses. When Jack constantly hits Piggy and ends up cracking the lenses of the glasses, Jack is breaking apart of Piggy; Jack is taking parts of Piggy and shattering them, making it almost impossible for Piggy to see what is going on around him. In another perspective, Piggy uses his glasses almost as a safety net, relying on them to help him survive and get through the rough times. When the boys realize this, they start taking his glasses from him to light the fire without even asking for Piggy’s permission, Jack starts slapping Piggy which breaks the glasses and causes Piggy to

He deciphers a way to tell the readers that as human beings, there are just as many ways to lose power as there are to gain it. Piggy is the main source of this information, and through his past, and the ways he acts, he somehow manages to show the readers the significance of how, through our personalities and things we can’t help, we lose so much power. Many books and novels in this world focus on the things that help us gain power and leadership, but the fact that Golding did the opposite, makes this book stand out more than the others. For the boys on the island, power is a big struggle; there are always fights over who gets to speak and who gets to be in charge and make all of the major decision. Through these fights and through these arguments, William Golding shows that power is a hard thing to grasp and it is something that is even harder to maintain. Piggy has a really hard time trying to be powerful and lead the group, but his actions and the actions of the other boys show that he can’t hold power over a group, and they show why Piggy has a hard