Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Symbols in Lord of the Flies
- The Conch
- democracy, social order, respect, power
- "magic shell"
- R: "Whoever holds the conch gets to speak"
- "The conch
exploded into a
thousand white
fragments and
ceased to exist."
- Conch is destroyed: end of order
- The Fire
- fire destroys island
but is also only hope
of rescue:
paradoxically symbol
of hope of rescue and
destruction of island
- "A fire, make
a fire!" -
recognize that
fire is essential
for survival
- R: "The fire is the
most important
thing on the
island"
- R: "Can't you
see we ought
to die before
we let the fire
out!"
- last connection to civilization
- loss of fire: loss of desire to be rescued
- Rules
- R: "Rules are
the only
things we've
got!"
- Roger: "Rules! We'll
have lots of rules! And if
anyone breaks em-!"
- Jack: "We've got to have rules
and obey them. After all, we're
not savages, we're English."
- Pig's Head on a Stick
- Part of Simon's hallucination
- "You knew didn't you? I'm part of you."
- Beelzebub
- "fun": foreshadows Simon's death
- The Beast
- shows boys' paranoia
- Simon: "Maybe it's only us"
- represents primal
instinct of
savagery that
exists within all
human beings
- becomes Totemic
God: "It's a gift for
the beast"
- beast is only a dead man
- "The beast, harmless and horrible"
- "at once heroic and sick"
- "I saw it.. a beastie"
- Piggy's glasses
- last connection
to civilization
- power: fire
- Piggy's intelligence/Piggy's
physical weakness
- glasses break: social
order breaks down
- "Piggy's glasses flew off
and tinkled on the rocks"
- "He was a chief now in
truth.. from his left hand
dangled Piggy's glasses"
- Ralph's hair
- descent into savagery
- time spent on island
- Ralph's obsession
- "like the tendrils of a creeper"
- "flung the mass back"
- "filthy hair"
- "pushes" hair off face 12 times
- Wounds
- boys leave "gashes"
- water "warmer than blood"
- "scar" - man's destruction of Edenic island
- "sulphurous explosion" - smell of hell
- Painted Faces
- "The mask was a thing of its
own, behind which Jack hid,
liberated from shame and
self-conciousness"
- reveals boys' true nature
- paint "liberates" boys into savagery
- loss of humanity
- loss of identity: boys become tribe
- Pig Hunts
- foreshadows violence & death on island
- "kill the pig, cut its throat, spill its blood, do him in"
- "dreadful eruption"
- "air was full of sweat and blood and terror"
- "terrified squealing became a high-pitched scream"
- boys hunt mothering sow: symbolic of rape
- as if they are killing their own mothers
- exerting power over helpless animal
- play-act hunting ritual: Simon is killed
- Simon's death
- the boys "leapt onto the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore"
- "no words, no movement but the tearing of teeth and claws"
- frenzied, savage, graphic