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The Pig's Head In Lord Of The Flies

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In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the head of the pig becomes an ongoing and important symbol. When Jack goes hunting, he is able to kill a mother pig. He cuts off its head, places it on a stick and the pig's head becomes an offering for the beast.
The pig's head represents the evil and violence that lies within the boys, it also shows a loss of innocence in the boys and it represents the title of the novel, ‘Lord of the Flies’. As the novel develops, the boys are left to their own devices and morals to survive on the island. Golding implies that when this happens, people naturally revert to cruelty, savagery and a human evil that he believes is in everyone. When Jack kills the mother pig, he is in great triumph over outwitting a living thing. This shows that he has become a savage through his time on the island, and his inner evil has taken over him. It also shows that Jack has become more violent over time, as if killing pigs is normal to him. Only Simon is able to recognize that the beast is not a monster or the pig's head, it is the evil that lives inside all the boys and the others on the island do not understand that. …show more content…

The title comes from one of the manifestations of the devil, Beelzebub, which translates to Lord of the Flies. In the novel, the Lord of the flies is the bloody pig’s head that Jack impaled on a stick in the forest as an offering to the beast. Again, this symbol becomes an ongoing, important image. When Simon confronts the pig’s head in the forest , it seems to speak to him, telling him that evil lies within every human heart. Through this, the Lord of the Flies becomes a physical display of the beast, and a kind of Satan figure who simulates the beast within each human

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