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William Goulding's Lord Of The Flies: Character Analysis

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William Goulding’s fictional novel, Lord of the Flies, starts off as a plane crashes into a tropical island completely isolated from civilization. As the plot progresses, the author demonstrates how the lack of rules and order for an extended period of time, brings out the flaws and strengths in humans depicted by the use of the characters. All humans have certain blemishes that make their personality unique in relation to others. Goulding brings out these faults in his characters, some of which develop into a political allegory. Throughout the characters we see political roles such as the resemblance of a president, dictator, advisor and peacemaker. The four boys that Goulding uses embody these references while truly demonstrating that separation from law and order bring several strengths and weaknesses that can be seen in past society as well as today’s. Either in the past or the present day, the world has seen several individuals take the initiative to accomplish a goal and become a leader. This is what we see in the main protagonist, a twelve year …show more content…

Goulding brings out certain strengths and weaknesses in his characters to demonstrate these allegories to the reader. The protagonist, Ralph, is depicted as the ideal leader, that possesses the courage to take action whenever needed and who has been elected by the common people on the island indicating a democratic government. The antagonist, Jack, is portrayed as a great example of a leader who is greedy for power and uses his authority for unlawful purposes. The combination of Ralph and Jack result in chaos which is then calmed by a sense of a reason that comes from the wise Piggy who acts as the advisor of Ralph. The political allegories in Goulding’s symbolic novel sheds light not only on the strong points of mankind, but also

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