The book ‘Lord of the Flies’ by William Golding is about the survival of British boys all aged below 13 on an unknown uninhabited island whom form a sort of civilisation in the time they are stranded on the island. They crash landed and are stranded waiting for rescuers. This new concept of an unsupervised lifestyle becomes hard to grasp and the boys try to create a system for the island with multiple clashes in idea’s. Their fear and social standings catch up on them resulting in death, fires, bullying and chaos.

In the book ‘Lord of the Flies’ by William Golding, the Pig head is a strong symbol representing many area’s of interest in the text. These area’s of the text include, the Pig representing the devil, a monster, ‘the beast’. The Pig head also represents the fear within the boys of the island. Firstly Pig head is an important symbol as it is in the title of the book. When Simon initially sees the pig head flies begin to swarm it and therefore Simon gives it the title ‘Lord of the Flies’. Throughout the book, ‘Lord of the Flies’ this idea of ‘the beast’ has constantly been introduced. This ‘beast’ is a representation of the fear inside the boys of the island, as there is no physical presence of the ‘beast’. An example of this is when the dead parachuter floats into the mountain side into a patch of blue flowers at night, with his parachute dragging him up the mountain. The boys of the island do not recognise the parachuter as a parachuter but as ‘the beast’ instead. This image of the parachuter is driven by the fear they have accumulated and they cannot even correctly identify an object due to this fear. The “Beast” is the symbol, the symbol of the fear presented in the text through the kids.

This idea of fear being such an overpowering emotion is something we can all relate to. Ever been scared by something and automatically screamed without any conscious decision to scream? I can almost guarantee that most of you have had a similar experience. This type of experience is just proof that this overwhelming emotion can overpower all sense of control, as displayed in the book “Lord of the flies”.

Personally I don’t have too much input towards the human impulse of savagery, I guess it’s because I believe that humans are better than that and have evolved beyond that or just don’t want to admit that my species still resorts to unnecessary savage actions we take. But after reading this book and analysing it, the events of the text seem quite realistic in how the savagery develops through fear and social order. The text has definitely had an influence on my thoughts and made me question if  human nature truely could be this disappointing when set wild.

When I read this book I couldn’t help but think of our societies, countries, schools, communities…etc. The boys stranded on the island strongly resemble this. When Jack turns against Ralph and Piggy, rest of the boys believe in Piggy and Ralph they still join Jack because they are scared of him but the funny thing is that they all together could beat Jack. This kind of submissive behaviour as said before relates to the world around us in situations such as bullies of all age groups who are followed