Summer Session 2010 Phillips Academy Andover English as a Second Language Mr.

r. Max Deardorff Essay 2 Lord of the Flies Name: Ricardo L. Borges Civilization and savagery: a fight inside of each one. In the beginning of time, everything on earth was wild, every plant, every animal and every man; and ruled by the wilder characteristics of human nature. In history, without an exact date, but with a long process of transformation, men and women chose to live in society. Society is not only a concept of a group of people living together, with similar characteristics; it is also something that is beyond the humankind decisions, it is what governs the world where we live. Once people decide to live as citizens, or rather, to live in civilization, order becomes an essential tool. Without order, every single group of people living in a social organization in the world would vanish. Since the moment people are born, they are included in this system of order and have to learn how to live as civilized people; however, they still maintain the characteristics of when the earth was wild, when their actions were administrated by the human instinct. These qualities are inside of everyone. People are not used to demonstrate their wild side, but it is there, just waiting for the appropriate moment to show up; and it does not happen only because we live in an ordered world. Sometimes, people are in difficult conditions, when they expect good things, but they only have bad times, so they go over the societys policy, and in the end, it is all about human nature. The writer, William Golding, saw close up, in the World War II, how men could be savages. In a war environment, the concepts of life like order and civilization are just
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simple things that people leave in their homes. In his novel Lord of the Flies, Golding uses symbolisms, like authority and disorder, or the common sense and the wild human nature, to demonstrate the contrast between the civilization and the savagery, and how the humankind can be naturally savage, only being civilized by societys rules. One example which shows the contrast between the savagery and the civilization is the Conch, as a symbol of authority, and the head of a sow, also called The Lord of the Flies, as a symbol of disorder. Right in the beginning of the story, the conch shows its power and demonstrates that it is a symbol of civilization. It starts to make the reader think about the position of the conch in the story being heard by all the kids in the island. At this time, the conch acts as the voice of a crowd asking for their rights, for their conditions of citizens. Another point that illustrates this civilized influence of the conch in the story is that the children could only talk with the conch in their hands, Well have to have hands up like at school Ill give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he is speaking, therefore, it demonstrates the conch was important to keep the meetings in order, and so this is a representation of the civilization in the island (33). The conch also confirms it is a society and an order symbolism when it changes in the same time as the people in the island change. When the children start to show their wild nature side, when they start to be more savages, the conch also presents some changes. The conch starts losing its power of ruling while the people start losing their civilized side. This symbolism is an evidence of the transition between the society and the savagery, the guys are becoming wild and the conch is becoming less influential on their actions. In the end of the story when the savagery becomes uncontrollable, Piggy, the character that represents the knowledge, dies and the conch is destroyed. It is one of the most important participation of the conch in the story, which is, ironically, its end. This is the end of the society
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and the victory of the savagery. In contrast of the conchs civilized image, The Lord of the Flies symbolizes the savagery. It appears in the story when the children are getting lost in their own insanity, when they are starting to show how savage men can be without the societys rules. Their fear of a beast which doesnt even exist makes them create The Lord of the Flies as an offer. They are not thinking as they used to think before, they are not civilized as they were, The Lord of the Flies is changing their behavior, is making their conduct worse. The sows head also represents the evil. The evil inside of everyone, that shows up when the wild human nature speaks louder. When the immoral character of The Lord of the Flies acts in the story, the peak that characterizes the end of civilization happens: Simons murder. These two examples make the fight obvious between civility and savagery, and they help to support Goldings ideals about society. Ralph and Piggy represent the maintenance of civility in Lord of the Flies, so they fight against Jack and Roger, the representatives of wild human nature and the lost of order. Besides the use of objects, like the conch and the sows head, for showing the symbolism present in the novel, Golding uses characters to make sure that there is a contrast between order and savagery in his story. First, there are Ralph and Piggy, as the guardians of the concepts of social life, such as common sense and knowledge. One thing that is clear in Piggy and Ralphs personalities is the friendship. They both care about the feelings of the others and by doing this, they keep the group united as much as they can. In the beginning of the story Ralph is chosen to be the chief, which shows he is an able person, able to lead, able to bring the order to the group. Those characteristics are strongly related to the civility, because one thing which is needed to live in civilization is order. Piggy is the character whom denotes the ideals of knowledge, intelligence; and with this, he helps Ralph to produce an ordered crowd. He is like the prime minister of a
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parliament, the vice president of a company, which means he is the person who has the ideas, but does not become much known by those ideas. The most important thing that shows they are symbols of civility is that they first cared about going back to the idea which they represent in the novel: the civilization. They are the ones of the few people in the island who were thinking about being rescued and going back home, which shows they still have a connection with the world they left behind. On the other side, there are Jack and Roger, as the wild side of human nature. Not even the wild side, but they also represent the evil face of the group. They are naturally corrupted inside themselves; they already have a strong savage character in their souls. The first thing that happens in the story which indicates Jack was becoming a symbol of savagery is when the reader discovers he has a knife. If people think about the simple meaning of the story, the small knife does not mean a thing, but thinking about the more complex ideas, the knife is something that makes him different from the others, makes him wilder than the others. Roger, in the same way as Jack, has a transformation during the novel. Even if he had a complicated personality since the beginning, he becomes worse throughout the story, and in the end, by murdering Piggy, he kills the knowledge and shows he was its enemy, the enemy of civilization. Both Ralph and Jack have an important role in Lord of the Flies, their leadership influence the acts of other children, Ralph taking them to the civilized side and Jack, to the savage side; they represent the divergence between the progress and the primitive. As another evidence of the Goldings symbolism is the signal fire, which they made to be rescued, representing the civilization and in opposite to the fire, appears the hunt as a symbol of uncivilized people. Instead of keeping the fire burning, the savagery shows up through the desire of the jacks group of only hunting. The fire can be considered something that represents the civility because it was their only hope for being rescued; the only thing that keeps them
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believing they, one day, will be safe at home and life is going to be as nice as it was before. If any boat passed near the island, they had to keep the fire burning so that people from the boat would see the smoke. Without the fire, they could be stuck in the island for the rest of their lives, which could probably do not be a long time. The fire is also something that requires attention, requires organization from the children. Once they have to make a schedule for keeping the fire burning, they need to be organized and it keeps them in a civilized background. The fire also denotes a relation with the hopeless. The fire is their light in the end of the tunnel. On the opposite side of the signal fire, the hunting stands for the savagery. At the first moments they make the fire, when the Jacks group is taking care about it, they go hunt and forget about the fire. It dies and they miss the chance of being rescued, they miss the chance of coming back to the society. The hunting, besides taking their attention off the main thing in the island, which is being rescued, brings out their wild feelings, such as the desire of killing, of running away without any order, the desire to Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! (152). In the end of the story, ironically, the positions change. Because of the hunting, they make the fire, which saves them after the whole thing. The fire burns everything in the island and transforms it in a hell of smoke. It all starts when Jack decides to kill Ralph. One day the hunters went out to hunt and Ralph was the game. To find him they burn the entire island and the smoke calls a boat attention. Finally they got rescued by the hunting and the hunting fire, but the fire still burns everything. Two wild ideas, fire and hunting, things that exist since the man is known as man, mean very different things. First the fire, the light of the island, is being their chance of being rescued, then the hunting, weakening up the wildest part of the childrens personalities; and not even only them, but any human being. Contrasting those examples we can clearly see the

different meanings on Goldings symbols, where he is telling the reader how people can show their savage side, instead of living normally as in as ordered society. By using examples like the Conch or The Lord of the Flies, Golding illustrates there are in the novel some examples of how men can be socialized but can also be controlled by the wilder side which is inside of each one, waiting for any weakness in the civilizations rules to overpower peoples behavior. Unfortunately, the evilness of the majority influences the good minority. In Lord of the Flies the reader can see the influence that Jack makes in the others ways of acting. The novel also presents some items; such as peoples personalities like Ralph and Jacks leaderships, or even more abstract symbolisms such as the power of the fire and the blind desire for hunting that Jacks group presents. With those examples, which are clearly seen in the story, the reader can surely understand the contrast the author makes, constructing a more interesting book, between savagery and civilization. The reader can also see how evil people are in their daily life, where the ambition is like a veil that follows men; or that envy and intolerance are more common than they imagine. Finally, people have to choose between living in a dream world where everything is nice or face the hard, but real, surviving condition where without the civilized rules of the society, good manners would vanish.