LOTF Structure

The themes are revealed in the first half of the novel and then reworked at a frightening, pained, deeper level  in the second half.

This is structure and you need to explore it in the exam.

Repetition enhances the reader’s understanding of the novel.

Go through the following five points and find quotations where they link in the novel; the, analyse the quotes.

1. Boys exploration of island in the beginning – second exploration in Chapter 7
2. Roger just missing the littlun with stones – to  rolling a rock at Piggy
3. Jack’s first attempt to kill the pig, to the sharpening of both ends of the stick at the end. (lots of stuff for this one, each more sickening than the other)
4. Chanting ‘Kill the pig!’ – ‘Kill the beast!’ with Simon and the sacrifice.
5. The fire in Chapter 2 reveals first glimpse of ‘hell’ – final chapter island is on fire

To an extent we could call this - Incremental repetition, a modern term for a device of repetition commonly found in ballads. It involves the repetition of lines or stanzas with small but crucial changes made to a few words from one to the next, and has an effect of narrative progression or suspense.

It creates what we can call narrative echoes and, of course, foreshadowing. But what’s the effect?

•          It creates tension and a sense of foreboding

•          It moves the novel forward with pace. The amount of things that are repeated mean that we get a sense of the degeneration of the civilisation and progression into violence.

•          It makes it readable too! Golding ensures that we know things are getting worse and we want to read on

The novel’s development is revelatory. It begins by revealing a little by little. Repetition is used with variation to allow the reader further insight into the novel. This repetition is not monotonous, but  heightens what has happened before with more power and, consequently, at a deeper and darker level. This also gives the text an accumulative progression that reaches much further than the superficial narrative, but tells of ‘man’s essential sickness’ as Ralph weeps for the ‘loss of innocence’. Golding’s use of incremental repetition gives the reader a profound insight into the human condition that is in stark contrast to the facile optimism of Swallows and Amazons and Coral Island. The cumulative triumph of bad over good is overturned with the sudden intrusion of the naval officer, the deus ex machina. Golding himself said that the novel is symbolic except for the end where ‘adult life appears, dignified and capable, but enmeshed in the same evil as the symbolic life on the island’. Golding uses this as an antidote; it is there to deliberately shock the reader and throw everything else into perspective. There is fragility within civilisation; it could all quickly disintegrate and we don’t know what we are capable of.

Symbols from the Carousel

Symbols from the Carousel

The beast is easy enough: it represents evil and darkness. But does it represent internal darkness, the evil in all of our hearts, even lovely, British Ralph? Or does it represent an external savagery that civilization can save us from?

o The beast is different for different boys
o It is represented as the dead parachutist, snakes, the pig’s head and noises heard in the night.
o The real beast is our deep, dark primeval urges.
o The boys invent the beast as a fear for them to focus on rather than the darkness in themselves.

When the twins list off the horrible attributes of the creature they saw, they reveal that it has both "teeth" and "eyes"; Ralph and Jack see it as a giant ape. So perhaps the "beast" is a man-who-isn't, the animal side in all of us?

The imaginary beast that frightens all the boys stands for the instinct of savagery that exists within all human beings. The boys are afraid of the beast, but only Simon reaches the realization that they fear the beast because it exists within each of them. As the boys grow more savage, their belief in the beast grows stronger. By the end of the novel, the boys are leaving it sacrifices and treating it as a totemic god. The boys’ behaviour is what brings the beast into existence, so the more savagely the boys act, the more real the beast seems to become.

The Lord of the Flies, which is an offering to the mythical "beast" on the island, is increasingly invested with significance as a symbol of the dominance of savagery on the island, and of Jack's authority over the other boys. Symbolically, then, it is associated with Jack. The Lord of the Flies represents the unification of the boys under Jack's rule as motivated by fear of "outsiders": the beast and those who refuse to accept Jack's authority.

Piggy’s Glasses

Piggy’s glasses represent intelligence and clear thinking.
o They are useful for the boys to get the fire started both to attract rescuers and for cooking the meat.
o When one lens is smashed it represents the lack of clear thinking of the others.
o The glasses are completely destroyed when Piggy dies and this is Golding’s way of representing the further fall of the boys into chaos and darkness.

Piggy is the most intelligent, rational boy in the group, and his glasses represent the power of science and intellectual endeavor in society. This symbolic significance is clear from the start of the novel, when the boys use the lenses from Piggy’s glasses to focus the sunlight and start a fire. When Jack’s hunters raid Ralph’s camp and steal the glasses, the savages effectively take the power to make fire, leaving Ralph’s group helpless. We could also see that they represent how sightless they are in recognizing the breaking down of their society.

The Fire

The fire has good and bad uses.
o It is useful for attracting rescue, gives warmth and can be used for cooking, but it can be very destructive as we see at the end of the novel.
o Fire is used in ritual and is the backdrop to Simon’s frantic death.

The signal fire burns on the mountain, and later on the beach, to attract the notice of passing ships that might be able to rescue the boys. As a result, the signal fire becomes a barometer of the boys’ connection to civilization. In the early parts of the novel, the fact that the boys maintain the fire is a sign that they want to be rescued and return to society. When the fire burns low or goes out, we realize that the boys have lost sight of their desire to be rescued and have accepted their savage lives on the island. The signal fire thus functions as a kind of measurement of the strength of the civilized instinct remaining on the island. Ironically, at the end of the novel, a fire finally summons a ship to the island, but not the signal fire. Instead, it is the fire of savagery—the forest fire Jack’s gang starts as part of his quest to hunt and kill Ralph.

The Conch

Represents order.
o Colour changes to show a loss of innocence in the boys.
o Loses its importance as the novel progresses as Jack and his ‘Tribe’ take over.
o Smashed into a thousand pieces at the end to show loss of order and civilisation.

The rift between civilization and savagery is communicated through the novel's major symbols: the conch shell, which is associated with Ralph. The conch shell is a powerful marker of democratic order on the island, confirming both Ralph's leadership-determined by election-and the power of assembly among the boys. Yet, as the conflict between Ralph and Jack deepens, the conch shell loses symbolic importance. Jack declares that the conch is meaningless as a symbol of authority and order, and its decline in importance signals the decline of civilization on the island. The destruction of the conch shell at the scene of Piggy's murder signifies the complete eradication of civilization on the island, while Ralph's demolition of The Lord of the Flies-he intends to use the stick as a spear-signals his own descent into savagery and violence. By the final scene, savagery has completely displaced civilization as the prevailing system on the island.

The carousel of the darkness of our hearts...

Hello
Lack of internet and then a weekend away surfing have meant this is somewhat delayed. Sorry.

Civil v savage

Golding's emphasis on the negative consequences of savagery can be read as an clear endorsement of civilization. In the early chapters of the novel, he suggests that one of the important functions of civilized society is to provide an outlet for the savage impulses that reside inside each individual. Jack's initial desire to kill pigs to demonstrate his bravery, for example, is channeled into the hunt, which provides needed food for the entire group. As long as he lives within the rules of civilization, Jack is not a threat to the other boys; his impulses are being re-directed into a productive task. Rather, it is when Jack refuses to recognize the validity of society and rejects Ralph's authority that the dangerous aspects of his character truly emerge. Golding suggests that while savagery is perhaps an inescapable fact of human existence, civilization can mitigate its full expression.

The central concern of Lord of the Flies is the conflict between two competing impulses that exist within all human beings: the instinct to live by rules, act peacefully, follow moral commands, and value the good of the group against the instinct to gratify one’s immediate desires, act violently to obtain supremacy over others, and enforce one’s will. This conflict might be expressed in a number of ways: civilization vs. savagery, order vs. chaos, reason vs. impulse, law vs. anarchy, or the broader heading of good vs. evil. Throughout the novel, Golding associates the instinct of civilization with good and the instinct of savagery with evil.

The conflict between the two instincts is the driving force of the novel, explored through the dissolution of the young English boys’ civilized, moral, disciplined behavior as they accustom themselves to a wild, brutal, barbaric life in the jungle. Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel, which means that Golding conveys many of his main ideas and themes through symbolic characters and objects. He represents the conflict between civilization and savagery in the conflict between the novel’s two main characters: Ralph, the protagonist, who represents order and leadership; and Jack, the antagonist, who represents savagery and the desire for power.

Throughout the novel, the conflict is dramatized by the clash between Ralph and Jack, who respectively represent civilization and savagery. The differing ideologies are expressed by each boy's distinct attitudes towards authority. While Ralph uses his authority to establish rules, protect the good of the group, and enforce the moral and ethical codes of the English society the boys were raised in, Jack is interested in gaining power over the other boys to gratify his most primal impulses. When Jack assumes leadership of his own tribe, he demands the complete subservience of the other boys, who not only serve him but worship him as an idol. Jack's hunger for power suggests that savagery does not resemble anarchy so much as a totalitarian system of exploitation and illicit power.

Loss of innocence. 

As the boys on the island progress from well-behaved, orderly children longing for rescue to cruel, bloodthirsty hunters who have no desire to return to civilization, they naturally lose the sense of innocence that they possessed at the beginning of the novel. The painted savages in Chapter 12 who have hunted, tortured, and killed animals and human beings are a far cry from the guileless children swimming in the lagoon in Chapter 3. But Golding does not portray this loss of innocence as something that is done to the children; rather, it results naturally from their increasing openness to the innate evil and savagery that has always existed within them. Golding implies that civilization can mitigate but never wipe out the innate evil that exists within all human beings. The forest glade in which Simon sits in Chapter 3 symbolizes this loss of innocence. At first, it is a place of natural beauty and peace, but when Simon returns later in the novel, he discovers the bloody sow’s head impaled upon a stake in the middle of the clearing. The bloody offering to the beast has disrupted the paradise that existed before—a powerful symbol of innate human evil disrupting childhood innocence.

At the end of Lord of the Flies, Ralph weeps "for the end of innocence," a lament that retroactively makes explicit one of the novel's major concerns, namely, the loss of innocence. When the boys are first deserted on the island, they behave like children, alternating between enjoying their freedom and expressing profound homesickness and fear. By the end of the novel, however, they mirror the warlike behaviour of the adults of the Home Counties: they attack, torture, and even murder one another without hesitation or regret. The loss of the boys' innocence on the island runs parallel to, and informs their descent into savagery, and it recalls the Bible's narrative of the Fall of Man from paradise.

Accordingly, the island is coded in the early chapters as a kind of paradise, with idyllic scenery, fresh fruit, and glorious weather. Yet, as in the Biblical Eden, the temptation toward corruption is present: the younger boys fear a "snake-thing." The "snake-thing" is the earliest incarnation of the "beast" that, eventually, will provoke paranoia and division among the group. It also explicitly recalls the snake from the Garden of Eden, the embodiment of Satan who causes Adam and Eve's fall from grace. The boys' increasing belief in the beast indicates their gradual loss of innocence, a descent that culminates in tragedy. We may also note that the landscape of the island itself shifts from an Edenic space to a hellish one, as marked by Ralph's observation of the ocean tide as an impenetrable wall, and by the storm that follows Simon's murder.

The forest glade that Simon retreats to in Chapter Three is another example of how the boys' loss of innocence is registered on the natural landscape of the island. Simon first appreciates the clearing as peaceful and beautiful, but when he returns, he finds The Lord of the Flies impaled at its centre, a powerful symbol of how the innocence of childhood has been corrupted by fear and savagery.

Even the most sympathetic boys develop along a character arc that traces a fall from innocence (or, as we might euphemize, a journey into maturity). When Ralph is first introduced, he is acting like a child, splashing in the water, mocking Piggy, and laughing. He tells Piggy that he is certain that his father, a naval commander, will rescue him, a conviction that the reader understands as the wishful thinking of a little boy. Ralph repeats his belief in their rescue throughout the novel, shifting his hope that his own father will discover them to the far more realistic premise that a passing ship will be attracted by the signal fire on the island. By the end of the novel, he has lost hope in the boys' rescue altogether. The progression of Ralph's character from idealism to pessimistic realism expresses the extent to which life on the island has eradicated his childhood.

I think that this idea of the beast being within all of us and the beast being linked to Satan shows how there is evil within all of us: there is a fragility to society and our civilisation could diminish rapidly. In these circumstances, we do not know what we might be capable of.

Some of this is taken from websites such as shmoop and sparknotes. I highly recommend them as revision sites. Don't forget we've also got revision guides for sale in the library. 

Enjoy work-experience! 

Ms