The Symbols Used by William Golding in Lord of the Flies
LITERATURE ASSIGNMENTS EXPLAIN THE USE OF IMAGERY IN WILLIAM GOLDING’S “LORD OF THE FLIES” “Lord of the flies” by William Golding, is a book filled with terrifying truths and unhidden disclosed secrets that have gone too far not to be acknowledged.
The writer perspicuously reveals the role of the society in suppressing the minds of its followers to the extent that even the most savage of all creatures if allowed, “man” is beguiled into reflectively presuming himself at the very peak of morality and the vision of civilization; as said, the hidden truths cannot remain so eternally; and thus Golding advances to fill “the lord of the flies” as a depiction of what lies beneath the barricade of lies and pretension.
He sets his book based on the most thought ‘civilized’ society, the British, using English school boys to buttress his points. Even amongst the symbolisms and the significances of the prose, there is a nature to which the book lies, a feature that makes it so further distinguishable from other books; a realized attribute that is passionately attained in this book, that is the ‘IMAGERY’. Golding’s ‘Lord of the flies’ is emphatic in nature and is an imagery of the reality of the scenes of its own.
The descriptive and metaphorical diction of the prose was advancement even in the times of Golding himself. In the book, Golding ensures the usage of imagery, one way or another at ever nook and cranny of his book. At a peak where Golding lays close realization between actual reality and his diction; it lies so close that one can almost see the scene. His words are so emphatic, they portray pure descriptive genius and they buttress the true beauty of nature.
Golding’s use of imagery sets us to realize the actual exquisiteness of the panorama, where the senses of the reader are so heightened that an awareness to the paradisiac essence of the book is established that even the task of discernment of reality from the book becomes arduous; where one can in actuality, practically feel, taste, touch and see the very essence of the island itself; even right from the beginning of the novel. This therefore leaves the diction used in the prose’s imagery to the reader to be bordering between sheer reality and fiction segregated by a mere thin diaphanous sliver or thread.
With imagery, Golding amplifies the sheer potency (effects) of several scenarios in the novel. Just like Michelangelo, the artist, Golding paints his artwork that is the novel; with scintillatingly vivid yet arrestingly dramatic colorful and picturesque scenes that one can only define as intense, passionately ardent and vibrant; but using his mere diction as the instrument culpable of the brilliance he smears his book with remorseless reality and intense vivacity.
It is blatant that if the imagery of ‘lord of the flies’ is removed then the book will become just ordinarily plain and boring, like a vacuum. It is now conspicuous the fact that the emphasis of this alluring book falls thoroughly on the paradisiac landscape of the cryptic island. Theological overtones are constantly elaborated in references to the island as a tropical haven: “the candle-buds open their wide white flowers glimmering under the light that pricked down from the first stars.
Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island” (page 74) a potent quotation, just a hay in the haystack barn of such assorted quotes from the book of ‘ lord of the flies’; vividly gives the reader an exclusive insight on the addictive allure of the flower. Golding uses a sundry of approaches to detail the very nature within the nature of the flowers; but all of these quotes and sentences prove the beauty of the fiction in relation to actual reality, because of Golding’s creative disposition that beguiles and lures the reader deeper into the appearance of the panorama.
Golding’s imaginative and innovative touches adds flare here and there throughout the novel. The sun and the thunder, for instance, in consideration to the attention are set across as physical realities not only for their symbolic in as much as they prove important, it is for the genius in Golding’s diction that they seem to take such a role. Golding advances further to analyze every scrap of the book theologically, with a realistic sense in a subtle perspective.
Golding develops a fervor for stacking the imagery in addition to the ather extraordinary momentum and power which drives the whole narrative forward, so that one incident comes prior and immediately another, sustaining that suspense he coalesces the both of them to give the most prolific effects. Therefore, it is no longer vague to the fact that Golding’s power to perceive a careful preparation for an incident.
But this imagery is not only restricted on the beauty of the island, Golding goes far to depict the characters of the novel, giving each of them a specific trait and feature that either boosts their role in the novel as a hero or regales them to the position of antagonist. The animals- pigs, “squeakings- and the hard strike if hoofs on a path…caught in creepers, throwing itself at the elastic traces in all the madness of extreme terror” (chapter 1. Page 42) the birds, “a vision of red and yellow, flashed upwards with a witchlike cry” (chapter 1,page 13), are set with vibrant abilities, colors and sounds, the mountains, the lake etc. verywhere, there is a certain perception to close reality in description to each one of them. Golding utilizes imagery to the maximum where he uses his diction to play with the reader’s empathy; when the reader feels present, a true reflection of what could actually be seen if allowed, a replica fabricates with the play of the mind, Golding involves the reader in every detail of the characters’ surroundings and events; therefore , it is the mind of the reader’s being that is stimulated to beguile the reader into seeing the novel in the mind’s eyes without a single visual effect.
ASSIGNMENT2 In all literal sense, there is no doubt to the fact that “ the lord of the flies” written by William Golding is without a doubt a perceptively innovative novel comprising of several symbols in natural sense to which Golding makes use of in several scenarios to depict the sheer nature of man’s facade, being and civilization. The irony where even the most civilized can also submit and be subjected to there true nature- the cataclysmic nature hidden beneath the mask of civilization.
The book set in the time of the world war two portrays savagery of his experiences through the novel, “the lord of the flies”. He opens the minds of the readers to the facade of our actual daily lives. He accentuates on his points by using a set of symbols that sets apart the novel from the others, with symbols Golding represents and demarcates several roles played in the novel, thus giving it an inciting taste. They are the vivid representations of several things in the novel.
Golding utilizes these precise symbols in as much of its analytical sense expressed using this certain representations to signify specific things that are used to promote the themes and to give perfect significances to the established literature. As perceived and notable right from the first chapter, ‘the conch’ being one of the most important major symbols used by Golding to a layman may only appear in natural common sense to be only seen as a beautiful shell, thus this segregates the borders etween literally analyzed details and sheer layman sense, deliberately the hidden representations Golding uses the conch to embody the very first realization of the boy’s actual civilization at first; this shell is an conspicuous symbol, in chapter one this very same shell is used in the hands of Golding to illustrate and show the utter honesty and civil behaviours of the boys marooned in the island. The conch is the very embodiment of the boys’ unity where Ralph and Piggy to amalgamate the boys pned all about the cryptic island to conspire and establish a meeting amongst them uses the conch.
Golding’s perceptive nature in his creative literature prodigy allows the further symbolization of the conch to denote Ralph’s place of authority as the chief, the conch is a potent symbol that sets the pace for others to come in the book; in as much as its overt representation of Ralph’s authority, the children’s reunion, the show of civility of the boys at their first appearance the conch symbolizes the authority of whoever amongst the boys holding the conch, not for only Ralph but they are given the boost to authorize, not in the sense that they are over Ralph, but such that whoever bearing the conch is freely given permission to utter verbal speeches pertaining to the subjects at hand without the interception of any of the other in exception to Ralph, who being ‘chief’, then surmounts them all in prerogatives. This symbol’s role in the uniting of the boys is made more conspicuous when the conch first conch begins to lose its influence and the boys dissipate into severe savagery, and is later crushed by a boulder, signifying the demise of the civilized instinct among almost all the boys and therefore breaking the boys utterly and evidently pointing out the extremity of Ralph’s authority and leadership.
In exemption to the potent ‘conch’, another symbol is persistently utilized and one of the most ingenious symbolic aspects of the book, ‘Piggy and his spectacles’ in Golding’s creation to embody the very peak of scientific inquisition; Piggy, an intellectual boy poses knowledge about the different facts nobody remembers or even inquire about and the voice of evident logic. ‘Piggy’s glasses’ represent intelligence and sight or the ability to see when it is used to focus the sunrays of the sun on woods to start a fire and as a result of it being stolen by Jack the potent power of sight and intelligence is transmitted to Jack. It is blatant that Piggy is the conscience of absolute knowledge when he consistently advices Ralph on their priorities or survival in the island; it was he who brought the ideas of definite need for shelter, and solely thought out the need to know everyone’s name at the first meeting enough to go about asking for everyone’s name. piggy and his glasses are recognized farther as symbols of knowledge and sight, when the break of the glasses and piggy’s blindness leads to the indisputable blindness of Ralph ‘sight’. In as much as piggy symbolizes, he is also the one who tried to see the scientific perspective over the death of Simon, when he points out what is culpable for Simon’s death, which he analyzed to be because of Simon’s creeping into the circle. The death of piggy completes the blindness and forces them all into absolute darkness, which in turn without the ‘voice of logic’ drowns the boys in barbaric savagery and thus leads them on a hunt for Ralph.
During the events occurring in the novel, Golding continually introduces more symbols in referring to the characters behavior and reactions in relation to actual reality of man. Amongst these is the intimidating anticipated appearance which the boys bore apprehension towards, that is surely the very presence of the beast of the air, which is later ascertained by Simon to be the dead body of a parachutist represents man’s apprehension and dread for what is unknown, which in actuality brings into the realization of man’s hasty resolve that only settles for a waiting jeopardy to occur; at several levels of mindset, in every aspect this fear widely diffuses through man emotionally, physically, spiritually, psychologically, culturally and politically pushing him through the very height of destruction. The lord of the flies’, another major symbol which is a dead sow’s head skewered in the jungle by Jack and his gang signifies man’s untamed barbaric savagery; the destructive capabilities of man’s hands, his consistent torture of nature and her descendants in the struggle for ‘civility’. His inner inconspicuous self hidden in a semblance of civilization and authoritarian rules and commands once unraveled bursts through the seams of the very fabric of ‘innocuous minds’ and reveals a horrifying grotesque and frightening being. Also, the painted faces which was smeared over jack and his gang symbolizes the mask that man hides behind; the facade and illusion inconspicuous as the painted faces of the boys, revealing the lies and cloaks the truths creates a formal game of charades where the deceived is man himself. It also signifies man’s moral degradation and his intense levels of cruelty.
