Lord Of The Flies - Concepts & Context

Question 1

What does Piggy symbolise?

Answer 1

Piggy is the most intelligent and rational boy in the group. His glasses can represent the power of science and intellectualism in society. The symbolism of the glasses is clear from the start when the boys use them to focus the sunlight and start a fire.

Question 2

What does fire symbolise?

Answer 2

“You got your small fire all right” (2.210).
- The fire thus becomes a symbol, paradoxically, of both hope of rescue and of destruction.
- Ironically, it is because of a fire that Jack lights at the end of the novel—in his attempt to hunt and kill Ralph-that the boys are rescued.

Question 3

What does the pig’s head symbolise?

Answer 3

• The title of the novel comes from the Arabic for one of the manifestations of the Devil. Baal-Zebub - or Beelzebub means ‘lord of the flies’.
• In the novel, the pig’s head on a stick, covered in flies, is a horrific symbol of how far the violence has come. The pig was killed by Jack and his hunters and the head is put on a stick as an offering to the ‘beast’.
• Only Simon really appreciates that the ‘beast’ is actually the evil inside the boys themselves and it is that which is breaking things up.

Question 4

What does the beast symbolise?

Answer 4

• The imaginary beast that frightens all the boys stands for the primal 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.
• Jack gains power through keeping alive the idea that there is an actual beast.

Question 5

What does the island symbolise? (religious context)

Answer 5

•The island is first seen as like paradise, too good to be true. Ralph thinks: “Here at last was the imagined but never fully realised place eaping into real life”
•However, the island is soon found to contain many dangers. For example, coconuts fall from the trees and just miss injuring Roger, the sun burns them, and the isolation is a curse.
•All this echoes the Bible story of the Fall of Man, when Adam and Eve were cast out of Paradise as a punishment for disobeying God.
- The island becomes a burnt wasteland, as if as a punishment for all the violence committed by the boys