William Golding's Lord Of The Flies: Chapter Analysis

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The Lord of the flies had unrealistic ending when a navy officer, deux ex machina, saves the boys from the island. In chapter 12, Jacks tribe is hunting Ralph down ready to kill him, but just when we begin to start doubting his survival, a military figure finds him. Throughout the novel there has been many references to military “ like a bomb” (46) the reason they make reference to the military is because war is also savage and uncivilized just like the boys. At the beginning of the novel Ralph proposes to make a fire so that boats passing by would come to save them “ if a ship comes near the island they may not notice us(..) We must make a fire” (38). In the final chapter the hazard uncontrolled fire that Jacks hunters made to kill Ralph is what led to their survival “we saw your smoke” (201). When the navy officer first encounters Ralph he does believe that they could be the only ones on the island. When he is finally convinced, he assumes being on the island was just “fun and games”(200), not knowing the horrors that took place on the island. When the rest of the kids come…show more content…
What I think Golding is saying is that the innocence is what marks to growth Ralph’s maturity and the darkness is mans kind essential evil. When Ralph is looking at the pigs skull early in the chapter he makes a comparison between the skull and the conch.” (Ralph) looked steadily at the skull that gleamed as white as ever the conch had done and seemed to jeer at him cynically.” (185) The pig’s skull is said to be the evilness in the children and the conch is said to be the ideal world. I interpreted this quote as the conch being the idea good and the skull being the ideal bad or evil. The skull may be literally dead but symbolically the evil still resides inside the boys, and that evil you can’t
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