Savagery In Lord Of The Flies

Lord of the flies is a novel written by William Golding. In the novel there are two main motifs: civilization, and savagery. The book describes a plane of boys from England’s private schools that is fleeing because of the war. Suddenly the plane is shot down and lands on a remote island somewhere in the south pacific. Then book immediately takes flight by introducing the main characters of the novel. Little do they know that the innate evil in man will cause the boys to lose civilization and transition to savages.

Characters Ralph, Piggy, and Simon represent civilization. Ralph is described as the “fair haired boy”. He will be elected the chief and is always doing things that need to be done like building shelters, starting fires, and gathering wood. Piggy is a logical thinker, but due to his asthma cant do any hard labor. Simon is a Christ-like figure, and throughout the novel is saving the boys from fear. Ralph, and Piggy find a conch shell on the beach and give it a blow so the other boys will come. When they do they decide who will be chief, and that the conch will be the call for meetings. Later on they put some rules about the conch that eventually are broken. …show more content…
Some of the boys encourage it with there actions like going hunting instead of keeping the fire going, or dancing to a violent chant like “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood. Bash her in.”. Jack is the leader of the hunters, and is constantly breaking rules, or disobeying orders. Roger is the darkest of boys at the end of the novel. He held on to civilization for the most part, but just snapped when closing in to their rescue. The hunters were partially civilized but when Jack lost civilization they all followed