Lord of the Flies: Literary Analysis In the novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, a plane full of English boys was attacked and crashed onto an island when trying to evacuate a nuclear war. Now the boys must learn to survive and work together. Although they began as a civilized bunch, after conflicts between group leaders Ralph and Jack, savagery starts to emerge. Golding uses the conflict between the civilizations to show how the darkness of human nature can affect even little childrens. At the beginning of the novel, Ralph, described as “the boy with fair hair”, and Piggy a whiney, intellectual chubby boy, found a conch shell which was used to call the other boys who were lost on the island to the beach. Among the boys was a choir group led by a boy named Jack. Ralph was soon elected as leader seeing as being the one who called everyone together. Jack was in charge of the choir group to hunt for food. After countless failure of capturing a pig, Jack decided to paint his face with clay to be camouflaged from the pig. He lead the boys and finally killed his first of pig and came back to the group with the pig strapped to a stick and the boys chanting, “ Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood!”(69). We can see how excited the boys got from killing a measly pig. Jack describes his experience with Ralph explaining, “ There was lashings of blood...you should have seen it!”(69). Jacks thirst for more blood is an obvious sign of the development of savagery. Later on the boys came to enjoy killing pigs not just for their meat anymore but for the fun of it. “Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering. “(114-115). Later in the story, Jack began to rebel against Ralphs group and made his own tribe. He called everyone for a meal at their camp, even Ralph and Piggy joined him. After everyone had their filling, Jack asked, “Who’ll join my tribe?”(151). Many decided to joined him and began to dance and chant, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!”(152). Ralph and Piggy found themselves eager to partake in the “secure society”. Simon who had been in the woods investigating the “beast”, came out of the woods to tell them about the good news, but was attacked by the boys who mistaken him as the beast and was killed. The boys were blinded by their savagery and had ended up committing murder. They all then, tried to pretend as if nothing had happened. Tension between Ralph and Jack became more serious when Jack and his group stole Piggy’s glasses. Ralph went to castle rock to retrieve Piggy’s glasses which led up to the duel between Ralph and Jack. Piggy, an adult like figure, steps in and asked,” Which is better-to have rules and agree, or to hunt and agree?”(180). While Piggy was talking, Robert, a member of Jack’s group, dislodged a giant rock onto Piggy." The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee: the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, traveled through the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went. Piggy fell 40 feet and landed on his back across the the square red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff came out and turned red. Piggy's arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pigs after it has been killed."(181). When Piggy dies, the conch is smashed, signifying all the order and control and civilization in the story. Once the conch is smashed all chance of civility is gone to the point of no return. This also marks the end of rational thinking due to the fact that Piggy is the voice of reason.
In Lord of the Flies, when Ralph is finally rescued, he realizes that, although he is saved from death on the island, he will never be the same again. He has lost his innocence and learned about the evil that lurks within all human beings. Ralph was crying for the death of his friend, because Piggy ultimately represented the last of the good that was left on the island. With his death, there was nothing left but the darkness of human nature.