Fire, the Most Important Symbol in Lord of the Flies
One of Golding’s predominant techniques for exhibiting his dramatic conflict involves the usage of symbols. Using the quote, the whole book is symbolic in nature; William Golding tries to prove his point by using different symbols that denote something that is unsteady on the island. Lord of the Flies is a considerably emblematic novel in which the symbols convey the major themes and how they evolve throughout the novel. Symbols can be objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. Fire is the most prominent symbol in the novel, and it leads to disputes between the boys.
Fire is more vital to the boys than any other substances on the island. “But I tell you that smoke is more important than the pig however, often you kill one” is one of the significant quotes by Ralph where he emphasizes the importance of the smoke/fire. Throughout book, the value of fire keeps constantly changing. At the beginning, the fire was very important to the children and demonstrated their necessity to be rescued. After all, when the savagery aspects gained importance among the children, the fire started to create disputes between the boys. Although towards the end of the book, they set the whole the forest on fire to kill Ralph, they fortunately got rescued. This shows us that we get things from hard work and luck equally. The fire paves the way to the origin of civilization. The fire is even a tool to prepare food, gives protection and comfort at night. Although some boys wish for to hunt all the time and doesn’t aspire to guard the fire, they show dependence on fire, when they want to cook their meat.Towards the end of the book, when Jack and his group raids Ralph’s shelters to procure Piggy’s glasses, their dependence on Piggy’s glasses and to the fire is being portrayed. Even so, there is something foil to these benefits of fire. Fire turns out to be a symbol of destruction in some ways. The fire raises an unavoidable risk of being assassinated by its bad intentional usage and thus devastating themselves and even the whole forest. As a result of ruining the island, they destroy their own habitat (no fruits, animals) and cause damage to themselves and leave this reality out whenever they consider the violence rule and power more substantial.
The Essay on Naval Officer Savages Boys Island
Essay- The irony of the ending of the Lord of the Flies. The ending of the novel "Lord of the Flies," was somewhat surprising. I was surprised, at least. Its very ironic how they are rescued and who they are rescued by. At this point in the novel, the boys are no longer acting like humans, but are savages. They fight for power, and hunt each other down like animals. Jack has taken control and has ...
The fire has an indirect correlation to Piggy’s glasses. Piggy’s spectacles were used to light the fire. When the kids needed food, they could cook meat only through the fire that could be made only using Piggy’s glasses. This ultimately leads to many brawls between the boys regarding the ownership of fire and they went against each other. When the boys arrived at the island they didn’t know how to take care of these boys without the help of an adult and lacked the knowledge of how to maintain order and peace among them. Anyway, their desire to be rescued kept them together and hence yearned for the fire to keep going. However, when the authority of Ralph became consistently weak, others wanted to take over his position, leave the fire, and hunt all the time and light fire only when they needed to cook their meat.
Fire is a signal to other travellers and ships and is deeply associated with survival. If they hunt, they will not be noticed by anyone, but they need fire to keep it as a signal for other travellers, who might notice them and rescue them. One time, they lost their chance to be rescued when they left the fire unaided and a ship passed by without noticing the island with the boys. The dominance of fire over hunting or food establishes the fact that people eat to sustain their lives preferably than sustain their lives to eat food. Fire creates anger and quarrels between the boys when one group demands to guard the fire and the other group takes pleasure in hunting and being savage. Fire links many additional aspects that have to be handy and places many other possessions in danger. For example, they need to have Piggy’s spectacles to light the fire which risks Piggy’s life eventually.
Text response essay on This Boy’s Life
Tobias Wolff’s memoir, This Boy’s Life illustrates the harsh realities of growing up in the 1950’s and the failures associated with it. Wolff uses his experiences growing up from a child’s point of view and the interactions of his characters to illustrate that society of the 1950’s produced a landscape of unsustainable beliefs and misplaced optimism. He demonstrates this through ...
The fire is valuable to all the boys in one or distinct ways. They even cause disputes between each other in order to establish control over the fire. The fire was the foremost reason why they were left unnoticed by a ship and later were rescued from the island. Fire, which was a symbol of rescue transitioned to the symbol of death and destruction towards the ending, when they set the entire forest on fire for their self-obsessed needs. Fire even risked Piggy’s life, when they required Piggy’s glasses to light the fire all the time.
