Social Allegories in Lord of the Flies

The Lord of the Flies if taken at face value can be taken as a short book about the struggle to stay alive on a deserted island and its physical and psychological influences on its residents. However, when the reader looks deeper, they see a story that is an allegory filled with rich and detailed imagery in almost all facets of the novel. An allegory is defined as a type of writing that presents abstract ideas or moral principals in the form of symbolic characters, events, or objects. “The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature” (204). Ralph and Jack represent opposing views on control, Piggy symbolizes technology, and Simon represents the humanity within us all. The novel begins as Ralph wanders along the beach.

Ralph characterizes the civilization of the island. He uses his influence for the benefit of the people, especially to look after the “littluns.” The littluns symbolize the people regulated by a government. In their case, the “bigguns,” take advantage of the little ones and soon overlook them entirely. Ralph is the charismatic, athletic central character of Lord of the Flies. Voted the chief of the boys at the start of the novel, Ralph is the prime representative of order, society, and productive leadership in the novel. Whereas most of the other boys at first are concerned with having fun, avoiding work, and playing, Ralph sets about constructing shelter and thinking of ways to boost their chances of getting off the island.

For this reason, Ralph’s control and authority over the other boys are safe at the beginning of the novel. However, as the group steadily yields to savage nature over the course of the book, Ralph’s position declines sharply while Jack’s rises. Eventually, most of the boys except Piggy leave Ralph’s group for Jack’s, leaving Ralph without help to be hunted by Jack’s tribe. Ralph’s commitment to civilization and morality is deep-seated, and his main wish is to be rescued and come back to the world of adults. At the end of the novel, this perseverance gives Ralph a moral victory, when he casts the Lord of the Flies to the ground and takes up the stake it is placed on to protect himself against Jack’s hunters.

Jack Merridew represents a need for power along with savagery comparable to primitive nature. Jack uses his influence for pleasure only, slowly evolving into a complete ruler by the time the tribe splits. “There isn’t a tribe for you anymore! […] I’m chief” (181). The egomaniacal, strong-willed Jack is the novel’s key representative of the natural feelings of savagery, aggression, and the desire for rule. From the beginning of the novel, Jack desires power above all other things. He is angry when he loses the election to Ralph and recurrently pushes the boundaries of his lesser role in the group. Initially, Jack maintains the sense of moral decency and behavior that civilization instilled in him. The first time he stumbles upon a pig, he is incapable of killing it. Nevertheless, Jack soon becomes obsessed with hunting and dedicates himself to the undertaking. Eventually, the more savage Jack becomes, the more he is able to gain power over the children. By the conclusion of the novel, Jack has discovered to use the boys’ fright of the beast to influence their behavior, and gain domination over the island.

In Lord of the Flies, Piggy represents intelligence and technology. He acts with reason as a mature adult would in his position. Besides acting like a parental figure, Piggy provides additional leadership before and following the split of the tribe. Piggy’s “specs” allow for the conception of all fire on the island. The glasses represent science and technology, and their impacts on the world. The glasses also play an essential role in the foreshadowing of the anarchy that will eventually develop on the island. “Jack smacked Piggy’s head. Piggy’s glasses flew off and tinkled on the rocks. Piggy cried out in terror: ‘My specs'” (71). The breaking of Piggy’s glasses can be thought of as the start of the events that will trigger the island to tumble down into complete and inevitable disorder led by Jack’s anarchy.

While Ralph and Jack stand at contradictory ends of the spectrum connecting civilization and savagery, Simon is situated in a completely different world from all the other boys. Simon represents a kind of instinctive, spiritual human decency that is deeply connected with nature. The other boys desert moral conduct as soon as society is no longer there to enforce it upon them. Contrasting to all the other children on the island, Simon behaves morally not out of blame or dishonor but because he accepts as true the inherent significance of morality. He acts kindly toward the younger kids, and he is the first to realize the dilemma created by the beast and the Lord of the Flies–that is, that the beast on the island is not a physical monster but rather a savagery that loiters within each person.

The sow’s skull on the stake denotes this idea, as we see in Simon’s dream of the head talking to him. Ultimately, this idea of the innate evil within each human being remains as the fundamental problem of the story. Against this notion of evil, Simon represents a differing idea of essential human goodness. However, his cruel murder at the hands of the other children indicates the shortage of that good among an overwhelming profusion of evil.

Throughout the story, William Golding uses his characters, objects, and events as symbols to get a deeper meaning to the reader. The book weaves a riveting tale of optimism against the darkest side of human immorality. Even though the novel shows that evil exists in every person, the basic human goodness still appears to triumph when all is said and done. The Lord of the Flies is genuinely a modern classic with a meaning for everyone.