lord of the flies political allegory essay

Lord of the Flies

By william golding, lord of the flies essay questions.

In his introduction to William Golding's novel, novelist E.M. Forster suggests that Golding's writing "lays a solid foundation for the horrors to come." Using Forster's quote as a starting point, discuss how the novel foreshadows the murders of Simon and Piggy. Focus on two events or images from the novel's earlier chapters and describe how they anticipate the novel's tragic outcome.

Answer: The weather on the island grows increasingly more hostile and ominous as the novel's plot unfolds, Piggy's name suggests that he will be killed like an animal, and so on.

Many critics have read Lord of the Flies as a political allegory. In particular, they have considered the novel a commentary on the essential opposition between totalitarianism and liberal democracy. Using two or three concrete examples from the novel, show how the two political ideologies are figured in the novel, and then discuss which of the two you think Golding seems to favor.

Answer: The contrast between Ralph's group on the beach and Jack's tribe at Castle Rock represents the opposition between liberal democracy and totalitarianism. Golding presents the former as the superior system, demonstrated by the success of the assembly among Jack's group of boys and the ordered system that prioritizes the ongoing signal fire on the mountain, tactics that ensure the welfare of the entire group. Note, though, what happens in both groups over time.

Names and naming are important in Lord of the Flies. Many characters have names that allude to other works of literature, give insight into their character, or foreshadow key events. Discuss the significance of the names of, for instance, Sam and Eric, Piggy, and Simon. What does the character's name say about him and his significance? Use external sources as necessary.

Answer: Piggy's name, for example, indicates his inferior position within the social hierarchy of the island and foreshadows his eventual death at the hands of Jack's tribe. Simon was the name of Peter in the Bible. Jack might be named after John Marcher in Henry James's story The Beast in the Jungle , and so on.

Two major symbols in the novel are the conch shell and The Lord of the Flies (the pig's head on a stick). Analyze one or both of these symbols in terms of how they are perceived by the boys as well as what they symbolize for the reader.

Answer: The conch shell represents liberal democracy and order, as endorsed by Ralph and Piggy. The Lord of the Flies tends to represent an autocratic or a primitive order. Note the "exchange" of these objects at the novel's conclusion when the conch is smashed in Jack's camp and Ralph uses part of the Lord of the Flies as a weapon.

The children stranded on the island are all boys, and female characters are rarely discussed. How does this matter for the novel?

Answer: Gender difference is not explicitly discussed or represented in the novel, although femininity is symbolically present in the novel's representations of nature. Some of the male characters are "feminized" by the other boys when they are considered un-masculine or vulnerable. In a boys' choir, many boys have high voices that can sing parts normally reserved for females. It is unclear whether Jack's tribe would have become so violent (and nearly naked) if girls of the same age were on the island.

At the end of Chapter Eleven, Roger pushes Jack aside to descend on the bound twins "as one who wielded a nameless authority." Focusing on this quotation, discuss Roger's actions in Chapter Eleven in relation to Jack's power and political system.

Answer: Roger's actions towards the twins are unauthorized by Jack, indicating that Jack's own authority is under threat. Golding hints at a shift in the power system among Jack's tribe, which highlights the inherent flaws in Jack's system of military dictatorship.

Jack gains power over many of the boys by exploiting their fear of the mythical beast. How does Jack manipulate the myth of the beast to legitimize his authority?

Answer: Jack exploits the boys' fear of the beast to usurp leadership from Ralph, who stresses a rational approach to the presumed evil presence on the island. Within Jack's tribe, the beast continues to have a powerful symbolic and political significance among the boys, uniting them and ensuring their loyalty to Jack's leadership. When Jack first attempts to break away from Ralph's tribe, his authority is not recognized, but as the boys' fear of the beast increases, an increasing number defect from Ralph's group to Jack's, where the existence of the beast is not only acknowledged but is a central fact of day-to-day life.

By Chapter Three, the boys are divided into two groups: the older boys and the younger boys or "littluns." What role do the littluns have to play?

Answer: Consider especially the distinction between savagery and civilization.

What happens with the "littluns" registers the increasing brutality on the island. The earliest examples of violence in the novel are directed against the littluns, acts that foreshadow the violent events of later chapters. Moreover, characters who are kind to the littluns tend to remain most closely associated with civilization throughout the novel.

The novel's narrative action draws an increasingly firm line between savagery and civilization, yet the value of each becomes an issue in the conclusion, when Jack's fire saves the boys. Using these terms, what is the novel suggesting about human nature, evil, and human civilization?

Answer: The naval officer is a military figure, which reminds the reader that "civilized" societies also engage in violence and murder. Evil seems to be a force that threatens human nature and human civilization--from within. Still, evil is associated primarily with savagery and the worse part of our natures.

How does the novel reflect the Cold War and the public's concerns about the conflict between democracy and communism? Does the novel take a side? (Remember to cite all of your research sources in your bibliography.)

Answer: The Cold War was primarily between the democratic U.S. and its allies on the one hand, and the communist U.S.S.R. and its allies on the other hand. The initial events of the novel, following a group of boys in the aftermath of a terrible nuclear war, reflect and capitalize on widespread anxiety about the arms race for destructive atomic weapons. Ralph comes to represent the West and its values, while Jack comes to represent the enemy.

Lord of the Flies Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Lord of the Flies is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Quote Analysis. "There was a throb..."

At this point Ralph is once again challenging Jack's authority, Unfortunately all the cards are stacked against Ralph. A storm is brewing and to deflect the boys' fears, Jack orders them to dance around the fire. This communal spectacle of...

How do the boys respond to Jack's call for Ralph's removal as chief? How does Jack react? Respond with evidence from the text.

There is a lot of immaturity here. The other boys refuse to vote Ralph out of power. Enraged, Jack has a tantrum and runs away from the group, saying that he is leaving and that anyone who likes is welcome to join him.The boys don't like the open...

What does Ralph recall hearing From Simon and seeing in the sky ?

The boys would see cargo planes in the sky and fishing boats in the sea.

Study Guide for Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies study guide contains a biography of William Golding, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Lord of the Flies
• Lord of the Flies Summary
• Lord of the Flies Video
• Character List

Essays for Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

• Two Faces of Man
• The Relationship Between Symbolism and Theme in Lord of the Flies
• A Tainted View of Society
• Death and Social Collapse in Lord of the Flies
• Lumination: The Conquest of Mankind's Darkness

Lesson Plan for Lord of the Flies

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Lord of the Flies
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Lord of the Flies Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Lord of the Flies

• Introduction

Lord of the Flies as an allegory

William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” is considered as one of the greatest novels of all time in English literature for its exceptional plot and relevant societal subjects. The story revolves around a group of schoolboys who are stranded on a tropical island and their useless endeavor to form a civilized society.  As the time goes, their inherent evil and wicked nature become apparent and they nearly end up demolishing the island and each other. The story of the novel is not only moving and captivating but it also works as an allegory. 

Table of Contents

What is an allegory?

An allegory is a fictional story that imparts a meaning not clearly described in the narrative. An allegory incorporates persons, settings, situations that can be explained to act for hidden meaning with moral or political significance. William Golding’s famous novel “Lord of the Flies” is best known as an allegorical novel because it describes the authentic conditions of a group of schoolboys stranded on a tropical island to personify symbolic ideas related to mankind’s innate viciousness and the risk of mob mentality and authoritarian leadership. Generally an allegorical novel uses certain images, persons and places to show abstract concepts for instance a character by the name of The Lover symbolizing the idea of romantic love. 

Backdrop of World War:

In his famous novel “Lord of the Flies” William Golding builds a backdrop of World War for a story about schoolboys trying to create a human society adopting the imagined demolition of civilization. Characters in the novel personify distinct positive and negative sides of mankind. For example, Piggy symbolizes rationality and intelligence, and Jack symbolizes cruelty, evil, and authoritarianism. Objects on the tropical island also act as allegorical purpose; particularly, the conch symbolizes communication, civilization and order. “Lord of the Flies” as an allegorical novel urges readers to raise questions on the ideas that control human interaction and investigates the manners the larger powers affect human lives. By narrating the tale of an isolated group of schoolboys trying to remodel society, the novel questions whether the disruption of societies into war is imminent, and what forces inside us lead us towards self-demolition. 

Lord of the Flies as a societal allegory:

We can read Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” both as a societal allegory and biblical allegory. By interpreting it as a societal allegory, we can say that Ralph symbolizes democracy and civility, keeping the status of leader, and finding the conch, which is itself an emblem of cultured democratic discourse. On the other hand, Piggy, who turns into Ralph’s counselor, symbolizes rationality and intelligence, the keystone of an effective society.  Piggy and Ralph operate as two sections of a totality, with no one of two capable of productively leading without the other. Their association represents the necessity of rationality and intelligence in democracy along with the necessity of leadership capability for the purpose of logic and intelligence to be executed productively. On the contrary, Jack symbolizes both autocratic leadership and a more barbaric instinct approaching disorder. Golding makes use of conflicts of the schoolboys to demonstrate the struggle between democracy and absolutism, in which democracy is considered as civilized and absolutism as savage. Simon, who is brutally murdered, symbolizes inner human morality and goodness that is viciously subdued by the vices of human nature. So the civilized boys as Simon and Ralph utilize their power to save the other boys and forward the goodness of the group, on the other hand, savage boys as Jack and Roger utilize their power to satisfy their own aspirations, using the younger boys as objects for their own pleasure. 

Lord of the Flies as a biblical allegory:

We can also read Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” as a biblical allegory. The Schoolboys are stranded on a garden-of-Eden like island, which provides for all of their requirements. But, rather than being satisfied to live in law and order, they are overcome by fear and eventually demolish their Edenic island with brutal and careless actions. Simon is a Christ-like figure because he plucks fruit for the other boys and converse with nature. He acts generously toward the other boys. He is the first to recognize the problem caused by the monster and the lord of the flies – i.e. the beast on the island is not an actual earthly monster, but rather a wickedness and evil that lies within each human soul. But Simon is murdered before he can convey this message to other boys. Simon’s body splashed into the ocean by “moonbeam-bodied creatures with fiery eyes,” hinting at a depiction of angels descending to escort Simon to heaven. After interpreting Golding’s in this way, we can say that it is a retelling of man’s disobedience from the Book of Genesis in which mankind opposed God and was thrown out from the Edenic Garden. However, Simon’s death, instead of being redeeming of the boys’ evil and wickedness, only carries on to propel them even further towards evil and wickedness. 

Limitations as an allegorical novel:

“Lord of the Flies” does not completely follow the tradition of the allegorical novel, instead it departs from the convention of allegorical novels in that the major characters are completely evolved, conflicted, credible schoolboys. In a conventional allegorical novel, the characters represent a single idea and throughout the novel the author emphasizes only that idea. But this is not the case in “Lord of the Flies” . Most of the characters in the novel, on the contrary, have a degree of uncertainty and are portrayed at first loving and compassionate. Ralph, who signifies decent, broad-minded leadership, is also troubled by indecision and an incapacity to express his belief, or even think with clarity at critical moments. On the other hand, Jack who symbolizes wickedness and evildoing, undergoes moments of fragility and infirmity, as when the boys decide to retain Ralph as their head. Jack is delineated kind heartedly at the start of the novel, and grows extremely hostile as he is influenced by the cruelty he acts on the pigs and other boys. So we can say that instead of staying unchanged and single dimensional, the characters of “Lord of the Flies” transform during the course of the novel. This makes Golding’s novel “Lord of the Flies” distinct from other classical works of allegorical novels.    

Conclusion:

“Lord of the Flies” is broadly read and explained by many scholars both in religious and nonreligious ways. Golding employs the political, societal and biblical subjects to enrich his story and pass on his idea that human beings are wicked and immoral and requires an alliance with God to be complete and good. The novel’s characters, subjects, and setting all evolve basis of the novel on the fall of man, civilized and democracy and the issues of wickedness and absolutism. So because Golding’s novel incorporates characters, setting and situations that can be explained to act for hidden meaning with moral and societal significance that is why we can consider “Lord of the Flies” as an allegorical novel. 

Yes, “Lord of the Flies” is an allegory that employs its characters and plot to represent more abstract ideas that are frequently moral or philosophical.

Allegories in Lord of the Flies?

The novel uses a number of allegories, with objects like the conch shell serving as a metaphor of order and civilization and characters like Jack and Piggy reflecting various facets of human nature.

What is Lord of the Flies an Allegory for?

“Lord of the Flies” is an allegory about the innate savagery of people and how society can fall apart when people are cut off from civilization.

How is Lord of the Flies an allegory?

The novel is an allegorical work because the characters, incidents, and symbols are all employed to convey higher philosophical and moral concepts.

Allegory Definition?

An allegory is a literary device that typically conveys bigger concepts or ideas by using characters, events, or things to symbolize higher symbolic or moral connotations.

Lord of the Flies genre?

“Lord of the Flies” is largely regarded as an allegorical and psychological fiction that examines the dark sides of society and human nature.

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Lord of the flies - political allegory.

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            "Lord of the Flies," by William Golding is an example of a political allegory. Golding uses Jack and Ralph as metaphors for two conflicting types of government. Jack represents totalitarianism and Ralph represents Democracy. Golding chose his medium, a group of young boys stranded on a deserted island without any adult guidance, to show what a lack of a form of government does to a society and its people in a clear and simplified format. Golding wrote this book to support the idea that Democracy is the superior form of government, especially over totalitarianism. He does this by using Ralph (the fair boy) and Piggy (Ralph's confidant) as representations of democracy and Jack (the hunter) as a representation of totalitarianism.              Democracy is present in the book from the beginning. In the first chapter the boys vote for a chief by a show of hands.              "All right who wants Jack for chief?" With dreary obedience everyone in the choir raises their hand. "Who wants me?" .              Every hand outside of the choir except Piggy's was raised immediately. Then Piggy, too, raised his hand grudgingly into the air. Ralph counted. "I'm chief then" (Golding 23). This page is what introduces Ralph as a symbol for democracy. Jack is upset about not being chief but Ralph gives him and his choir the task of hunting and Jack is happy, if only for a moment. Ralph gives the rest of the boys' guidance and hope. He takes time to think things through then comes back ready to go. .              Ralph isn't the only symbol of democracy. The conch is a clear symbol of authority and order. Whoever has the conch can speak freely without interruption except by Ralph, the chief. "Where's the man with the trumpet?" Ralph, sensing his sun-blindness, answered him. "There is no man with a trumpet. Only me." (Golding 20). "And another thing. We can't have everybody talking at once. We'll have to have 'Hands up' like at school.

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Essays Related to Lord of the Flies - Political Allegory

1. lord of the flies and the realist theory.

In his shocking novel, "Lord of the Flies," author William Golding presents an interesting analogy to the anarchic world of modern politics and the constant struggle for power. ... If we're to treat "Lord of the Flies" as an allegory for international politics, then the boys would represent individual states. ... The distribution of power in "Lord of the Flies" is extremely bipolar. ... All throughout Lord of the Flies, there are many instances where the boys behave irrationally. ... "Lord of the Flies" provides a fitting allegory for international relations. ...

• Word Count: 1712
• Approx Pages: 7

2. Critical Lens

Such works that symbolize this quotation is George Orwell's Animal Farm and Jack Golding's Lord of The Flies. ... Animal Farm written by George Orwell is a modern political allegory set in the 20th century. ... Lord of the Flies written by William Golding is a multi-allegorical novel set in the 20th century. ... Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel, which means that its main ideas and themes are frequently represented by symbols. ... Lord of the Flies is an allegory which pictures the nature in human beings, whether it be good or evil, and points out that no matter how advanced ...

• Word Count: 749

3. Lord of the Flies/heart of darkness

The Condition of Man in The Heart of Darkness and The Lord of the Flies "Man is a fallen being. ... ("Introduction to Lord of the Flies-, http://www.lessontutor.com/ci4.html). ... In the story The Lord of the Flies, a pig's head on a stake, "the Lord of the Flies-, is characterized as the boys' nemesis. ... Golding uses the Lord of the Flies to symbolize the theme of man's inner evil. The Lord of the Flies can also be translated as "Lord of Dung-. ...

• Word Count: 4223
• Approx Pages: 17
• Grade Level: High School

4. How to losse

The Lord of the Flies. ... On the surface, The Lord of the Flies is about savagery and disagreements but the story's meaning goes beyond bullies and tribal disputes. ... The characters and objects on the island are not the only things that have deeper meaning in The Lord of the Flies. ... The Lord of the Flies is a story about little boys landing on an island and the course of their adventure. ... It's an Allegory. ...

• Word Count: 1375
• Approx Pages: 6

5. Full Summary - Lord of the Flies

Analysis After Ralph's tense, exciting stand against the hunters, the ending of Lord of the Flies is rife with irony. ... For Ralph, as for the other boys, nothing can ever be as it was before coming to the island of the Lord of the Flies. ... Readers and critics have interpreted "Lord of the Flies" in widely varying ways over the years since its publication. ... Still others maintained that Golding wrote the novel as a criticism of the political and social institutions of the West. Ultimately, there is some validity to each of these different readings and interpretations of "Lord of...

• Word Count: 11237
• Approx Pages: 45

6. Analysis of Gulliver

His commentary on English politics and mankind in general is often thought to be very controversial. ... In the summer of 1699, Swift became secretary and chaplain to Lord Berkely, one of the lord justices of Ireland. ... Jonathan Swift's style is composed chiefly of satire, allegory, and irony. ... Allegory, like satire, is used to teach. ... Being forced to live in a miniature box, Gulliver suddenly leaves Brobdingnag when a giant eagle flies off with him and drops him in the ocean, where a ship rescues him. ...

• Word Count: 1605