Use Of Symbolism And Characters example essay topic

405 words
DISCUSS TWO WAYS IN WHICH A TEXT YOU " VE STUDIED EFFECTIVELY PRESENTED ITS IDEAS In William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies, the ideas are effectively presented through the use of symbolism and characters. Golding uses symbols to convey ideas of the story. Each symbol is used throughout the novel to represent something. One of the first ones to appear and probably the most important symbol is the conch. The conch represents democracy, power and control. This is shown when the conch appears when the rules are being made.

Piggy is associated with the conch a lot because he too wanted democracy so badly. As the novel progressed we find that Piggy and Ralph become great friends and Ralph of course has the control. The conch shows how a situation can be controlled. "Ralph smiled and held up the conch for silence".

When the conch was smashed it symbolized the chaos that the boys were in and everything got out of control, there was no true power and the democracy had been broken. Another important symbol was Piggy's Glasses which represented intelligence, maturity and order. This was how the reader perceived Piggy, he was the one that knew everything and when it came to lighting the fire, Piggy's glasses were there to help. "His specs - use them as burning glasses". When Jack stole and broke the glasses then wore them round it was a symbol of Jack's savagery and how he hated Piggy. The smashing of the glasses, destroyed the maturity and order between the boys.

In Lord of the Flies the characters also presented ideas effectively. Golding used a diverse range of characters to show what happens when you throw them all together. The name Piggy even depicted the fat, snobbish boy. The other two main characters were completely different and believed such different things about being rescued. Ralph wanted to be rescued badly and wanted a fire going the whole time. Jack didn't care and his character developed to be savage and dangerous.

The contrast between all the boys showed that there is a thin line between civilisation and savagery. William Golding effectively presented it's ideas through the use of characters and symbols. Both of these showed the reader how civilisation and savagery are so closely related.