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Piggy In Lord Of The Flies

Decent Essays

The allegorical novel Lord of the Flies tells the story of a group of English schoolboys who become marooned on a tropical island and are faced with the challenge of survival after their plane is shot down during the course of a war. While some behave peacefully and work together to maintain order, others rebel and seek brutality and bloodshed. William Golding uses the characters as symbols to represent different human qualities, both good and evil. The character of Piggy is the symbolic representation of intellect due to his never-ending use of logic and reasoning, his application of facts and prior knowledge, and his vast expanse of ideas.

From the beginning, Piggy uses his logic and reasoning skills to combat the problems that arise on …show more content…

Golding uses diction to reveal the importance of Piggy’s wealth of ideas.When the boys are afraid to visit the mountain fire due to the presence of the beast, the great mind of Piggy suggests maintaining the fire on the beach, stating that they would “make smoke just the same”; Piggy is the only one who would have the “intellectual daring” to come up with such a suggestion (Golding 129). Though the boys feel as if they have lost the hope of rescue due to the mountain fire being off-limits, Piggy saves the day by advocating a quick fix//solution. Another time where Piggy’s ocean of ideas was proved helpful was when he first met Ralph and discovered the conch, an object which is symbolic of the order on the island. Upon finding the conch, Piggy brightly states that they could “use this to call the others” and “have a meeting” (Golding 16). Without his idea, the conch would not have been blown to summon the boys. The conch represents order and civilization because it is what gathered the boys together; it effectively governs the group meetings, for the boy who holds the shell holds the right to speak. Without Piggy’s idea and knowledge of the conch, the boys likely would not have been united or brought under

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