Lord of the Flies Term Paper

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Lord of the Flies

Introduction stating the topic and ending with a thesis

Topic and concluding sentences for all body paragraphs

Three examples for each body paragraph concluding paragraph that restates thesis and sums up essay

Transitional phrases at the beginning of each body paragraph

EACH ESSAY MUST INCLUDE THREE (3) QUOTES FROM THE NOVEL>

Put each quote in quotation marks " "

Cite each quote by chapter and page number.

Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel because there are many symbols in the novel that support the main theme Discuss the main theme of the novel and how it is supported through the use of symbols. (You will need to discuss three symbols)

Symbolism in Lord of the Flies

William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies, a story about English schoolboys trapped on a Pacific island, and how the civilization they try to create disintegrates, is an allegorical novel. Webster's New American Dictionary defines "allegory" as: "the expression though symbolism of truths or generalizations about the human condition" (p. 14). The novel is rich in symbolism. I will describe the allegorical significance of three symbols within Lord of the Flies: the conch; the pig, and the island itself.

The sound of the conch is used as a signal to call the boys together, and therefore both the conch and the particular boy using it have symbolic authority over the rest, the conch as a tool only the person in authority is entitled to use, and the user as an authority figure. In that sense, the conch serves the same symbolic function as a military bugle, or in ancient times, a call to worship, such as the ancient Jewish blowing of the shofar (a sheep's horn), which is still reenacted on the Jewish Day of Atonement.

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(Yom Kippur). The conch summons the boys to discuss, reason, think, and decide together. As such, it is an instrument of democracy, as well as an instrument of authority.

When the conch sounds, the boys are called together from the jungle. When Piggy asks at the beginning of the story: "Where's the man with the megaphone?" (p. 2), it is the megaphone rather than the man, a similar sort of instrument to the conch used to summon people together about which Piggy inquires; a megaphone is a unifying symbol. Later, the conch will serve that function. The sound of the conch signifies both power and submission (that is, someone calls, and others are called), but also togetherness, communication, and consensus as opposed to rivalry, combat, and isolation.

A second major symbol within Lord of the Flies is the pig, which functions literally and as a metaphor. The pig itself, the symbolic talisman of it, and even Piggy's name, all serve separate yet related symbolic purposes. Literally, the pig is food and sustenance, and its meat enables survival. Its killing represents mastery and self-sufficiency, the necessities of manhood. On the other hand, the killing of the pig and its bloody aftermath unleashes frightening, primitive, potentially dangerous instincts within some of the boys, and Jack in particular. As Golding states, of Jack, "His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink" (Chapter 4). This implies a blood-thirstiness within Jack, and ominously, since it further suggests his capacity to kill for power, sport, cruelty: motives other than survival. This is.....

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