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A Look at the Bigger Picture Lord of the Flies, simply put, is an allegory representing humanity as a whole. This can be visualized by seeing the island as the world, tribes representing countries, the conch or rules are a government, and differences between tribes can be seen as war. Throughout this novel one may ponder if our world is as uncivilized as the island, and one would learn we do live in a world like such. When the boys world is interrupted with the real world, the allegory ends. So, with this in mind,when will the real” world be rescued?
William Gildings novel, Lord of the Flies, symbolizes humanity and uses many different objects to represent the real world, such as the conch, fire, and the pig hunts. The conch representing order relates to rules within society. Fire is used to show destruction and hope, similar to how things in the world benefit from something negatively affecting another. We live in a violent and brutal world which William Gilding represents when hunting the pigs. William Gilding represents humanity though the conch shell.
The conch shell allows some to be heard and gives power to lead a group. In real life there’s democracies, republics, dictatorships, monarchies, etc, yet each government has a leader and a ruler that speaks over the others. In every case, if liked or not liked, the speaker is heard. The speaker in this case is whomever has the conch. Ralph says, “I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he’s speaking,” (Gilding 33). This quote shows if you hold the conch, you may talk. This is the setting up of rule and power.
Remarkably when there were arguments and separations within the group, the conch shell slowly began to wear away. And finally, when there was no leadership the conch shell broke. In the world, governments crumble and through the crumbling nobody is heard. And when governments crumble there is no leader, Just like how nobody listened to Ralph nor Piggy at all. The novel Lord of the Flies signifies fire many times. In some cases fire is positive allowing the boys a chance of survival. In other cases fire is complete destruction.
Piggy says, “Cause the smokes a signal and we can’t be rescued if we don’t have smoke” (Gilding 73). In this case Piggy finds fire as a positive and wants it to be saved. Interestingly enough destruction at the end of this novel lead to the boys rescue. So does this mean destruction and the same importance as survival? An extreme example of this can be seen as the Nazi Regime. Germany’s economy was atrocious and they needed a leader to “survive” the hard times. They elected Hitler to save the country, instead he destroyed it.
So destruction has the same importance of being saved. “The fire reached the coconut palms by the beach and swallowed them noisily. A flame, seemingly detached, swung like an acrobat and licked up the palm heads on the platform. The sky was black,” (Gilding 201). This proves that because of such destruction to the island (fire), it was the only reason the boys were saved. Hunting the mother pig represents rape, violence, and sadly human nature. Gilding’s goal when writing about the hunting of the mother pig was to relate this to our world.
Very well he knew that our world can be sick. He tried to show how sick in the sense of the slaughter of the mother pig. Such violence in Gildings world, as well as, the real world represents the annalistic side of humans. “He giggled and flicked them while the boys laughed at his reeking palms,” (Gilding 135). This sentence shows that though they Just slaughtered an animal they don’t have any care in the world about it. In some cases our world acts the same way, with the disregard for others. Later they say “Right up her ass! Which indeed shows no care at all for the horrendous act they Just committed. Lord of the Flies has a much bigger picture than just the story. The bigger picture is the representation of the world in which one really lives. A world of destruction, violence, and hatred. William Gilding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, is an allegory representing the world. A conch represents order within society. Fire is the representation of destruction as well as hope in humanity. Slaughtering the mother pig showed that people in society have annalistic sides.