Symbolism - a typical question

• Choose a novel where symbolism has been used by the author to highlight his theme. Show how the author used this technique to further the impact of the novel. In your answer you must refer closely to the text and at least two of the following: symbolism, theme, characterisation, imagery or any other appropriate feature.

• Please note that any analysis of symbolism must focus on the function of the symbols in illuminating the theme.

Symbolism & theme

• Golding uses symbols to convey a moral message about man’s primitive nature, the fragility of civilisation and the importance of upholding democracy with all its rights and responsibilities

• In this sense his novel is a fable

Lord of the Flies• The title of the novel and the most important

symbol of Golding’s theme

• it translates Beelzebub and represents the evil within the boys: “I’m frightened . Of us.”p174

• it comes from a decapitated sow, brutally slaughtered in a hunt which highlights bloodlust and depravity

• it pollutes Simon’s clearing just as the boys’ evil infects the island “You knew didn’t you? I’m part of you.”p158

• Ralph attacks it in the end - a final symbol of his rejection of evil “Fiercely he hit out at the filthy thing in front of him”p205

The beast• A figment of the boys’ imagination caused by their fear of

the dark & the unknown environment

• the littl’uns have nightmares and imagine that the jungle creepers are a ‘beastie’

• The decomposing corpse of an airman, lifted by his tangled parachute is mistaken for this imaginary beast: “However Simon thought of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick.” p112

• There is no beast and ironically the only thing the boys should fear is themselves

• It is no coincidence then, that the corpse is lifted out to sea as the first murder occurs

• the boys have become more frightening than ‘the beast’ of their nightmares

The conch • The most influential symbol of democracy & one of the key reasons that Ralph is elected chief: “The being that had blown that, had sat waiting for them on the platform with the delicate thing balanced on his knees, was set apart.”

• Freedom of speech, a fundamental right of an individual in a democracy

• As democracy begins to falter, the conch becomes noticeably more transparent and fragile. Both Piggy and Ralph cradle and caress the conch desperate to uphold civilised ideals

• Ralph brings it to castle rock to show Jack “the one thing he hasn’t got”, not realising that Jack and the others don’t want it any more or even recognise its importance

• The conch- and civilisation- “exploded into a thousand fragments and ceased to exist” when Piggy is murdered.

Piggy’s glasses

• Piggy’s glasses represent intelligence and reasoning. Piggy has the most sensible ideas but the boys ridicule and abuse him, rejecting reason from the start

• the means for lighting the fire, the glasses supply hope & rescue, Piggy’s sound advice also gives hope.

• Jack punches Piggy and one of the lenses smashes which symbolises violence over reasoning.

• When Jack, Roger and Maurice raid Ralph’s camp it is the glasses they have come for. Leaving Ralph’s lot unable to make a fire, they steal all hope of rescue

• This theft foreshadows the murder of Piggy, himself a symbol of reason

• In the end Ralph weeps for “the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy” recognising that without him, no civilisation would have been possible even at the start