Lord of the
Flies/Piggy
The title, Lord of the Flies, is a reminder for the reader of who it is that the boys are submitting to as they become more savage and superstitious. The expression is a translation of Beelzebub, the name of a devil, which suggests that the boys are becoming more evil as they establish the Lord of the Flies on a stick, and begin to worship the mysterious forces of the jungle. Further, the title suggests that the boys are like flies, mere instinctive beings swarming to the kill.
Fear of the unknown on the island
revolves around the boys' terror of the beast. Fear is allowed to grow because they play
with the idea of it. They cannot fully accept the notion of a beast, nor can they let go
of it. They whip themselves into hysteria, and their attempts to resolve their fears are
too feeble to convince themselves one way or the other. The recognition that no real beast
exists, that there is only the power of fear, is one of the deepest meanings of the story.
Piggy is necessarily more civilized than anyone else
because, with his meager physical equipment, only in the most civilized of societies could
he survive. Ironically, with his build, his nickname "Piggy," and his squealing,
he resembles the sacrificial pig. When he dies, his "arms and legs twitched a bit,
like a pig's after it has been killed." His superior intellect is of little use to
him in the later stages of the novel. In the increasingly more degenerate society of the
boys, the intellectual is lowered to the status of the beast. Then he is sacrificed and
symbolically eaten. Excerpted from:
An English project by
Chad Johnson and Emily Hicks
Songs referenced:
Cooling