Lord of the Flies
Group 12: STYLE
CONTENTS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Point of View
Imagery
Diction
Setting
Irony
Allegory
POINT OF VIEW
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Golding uses the omniscient third person point of view in
LOTF, allowing the reader to enter the thoughts of characters
such as Ralph and Simon, although most of the time, it is
Ralph’s thoughts we hear.
The 3rd person point of view allows the action to be described
from an objective narrator, and so allows the reader to make a
judgment on the unfolding of events, e.g. whether the arrival of
the navy officer is a salvation for the boys, and whether the naval
officer himself, being an adult, could understand what had taken
place on the island.
Also, the 3rd person point of view puts the reader ahead of the
characters, since we are allowed to know things in advance of the
characters, e.g. we know that the dead airman is not a beast but a
product of war.
IMAGERY
Symbols:
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Imagery is the basis of any novel, and LOTF is no exception.
The use of symbols is particularly important in this novel.
It helps convey certain ideas, e.g. conch = democracy and order, without having the
author to blatantly express them. The mot obvious is the island itself, which
symbolises the outside world. Each boy represents a different group of people in
society.
Some symbols are more subtle, e.g. the guns on the naval officer’s ship.
The guns on the ship symbolise the ‘violence’ civilisation uses in order to maintain
order. This is very much the same as Jack’s use of violence to assert control, but the
violence used in civilisation is justified and necessary. An example of such ‘violence’ in
society is the police.
IMAGERY (continued)
Animal Imagery:
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The use of animal imagery is particularly effective in this novel, since
the boys eventually become animals themselves.
The first is of the “snake-thing”, which is seen as a “beastie” by the
littluns.
Then comes the “squirrel” and the “jaguar” seen in the flames on the
mountain. This foreshadows the change that will occur to the boys.
Jack is described also as “ape-like” during his hunt, showing that his
primitive instincts are surfacing.
Perhaps Piggy also has some form of connection with his namesake.
This could be seen from Piggy’s violent death, albeit described
clinically – “His head opened, and stuff came out”, compared with the
hunting of the sow – “she [the sow] squealed and bucked and the air
was full of sweat and noise and blood and terror”.
DICTION
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In the boys’ dialogue, it is clear that many of them talk in the slang of
their generation, e.g. “waxy” (angry), “Wacco!” and “Whee-aa-oo!”
Golding had taught at an English boys grammar school before and
after WWII, so he would be very familiar with schoolboy slang.
The two words which show the reader that the boys are still immature
despite their savagery are “tribe” and “chief”.
The boys probably learnt these words from school during their lessons,
and try to copy what their own childish ideas of a “tribe” and “chief”
should be like.
Golding’s diction in his descriptions are complex, and is appropriate
since the ideas in the novel require such complexity to be brought
across:
“Then the sleeping leviathan breathed out – the waters rose, the
weed streamed, and the water boiled over the table rock with a roar.” –
here the brute force of the ocean on the Castle Rock side is described.
DICTION (continued)
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Sections of dialogue are terse and almost monosyllabic. The boys rarely speak
more than a few sentences at a time; often their speech is just a few words
and their vocabulary, for boys who are quite well educated, is unusually
limited.
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Pg. 173: ‘ “Piggy, what’s wrong?”
Piggy looked at him in astonishment.
“Do you mean the - ?”
“No, not it…I mean…what makes things break up like they do?”
Piggy rubbed his glasses slowly and thought. When he understood
how far Ralph had gone towards accepting him he flushed pinkly
with pride”. ‘
This suggests that once the boys are removed from society, the need for
complicated communication gradually decreases. Of course, the boys who
have descended further into savagery show more change, e.g. the choirboys
originally sang holy hymns in chapels, but now they are reduced to
monosyllabic chants – “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” – and
ululations.
SETTING
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Setting is as important to the novel as the imagery.
The island has three major locations: the lagoon, the mountain
and Castle Rock.
These different locations allow Golding to move the boys
around in order to suit his purposes for the novel.
A contrast between the secure lagoon and the rough Castle Rock
is shown in their shorelines: the lagoon is “still as a mountain
lake”, with shades of blue and “shadowy green and purple”. On
the other hand, CR’s side is exposed to the open sea, and Ralph
could see and feel “the brute obtuseness of the ocean” there.
The mountain has religious connotations. It is an allusion to
Moses obtaining the Ten Commandments from God. Here,
Simon goes up the mountain to find the truth about the beast
“with a sort of glum determination like as old man”.
SETTING (continued)
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The island provides the perfect laboratory for Golding to experiment with the
boys and how they would act under such an environment.
Several factors come about conveniently for Golding:
 There are no dangerous animals on the island.
 The boys are not struck by any disease, except for the mild case
of diarrhea.
 There is an abundance of food: pigs and fruit.
 The boys do not talk about building a boat and leaving the island,
as in ‘The Coral Island’.
The island therefore seems to represent the garden of Eden, and so proves
the point for Golding that should any disorder and savagery arise, it would be
totally due to the boys themselves.
At the beginning, the island is a paradise for the boys, but eventually, it
becomes literally hell for Ralph as he runs away from the hysterical hunters,
with the island burning behind them.
IRONY
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Golding's use of irony is both interesting and highly relevant to the tone and
message of the novel. In terms of style, irony provides a powerful vehicle for
some (often quite macabre) statements about life and fate. Irony is somewhat
easier to illustrate than define; the following points may help you understand
it:
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Piggy is angry about the forest fire and the disappearance of the boy with the
birthmark - but Piggy's glasses were used to start the fire, so he is indirectly
responsible.
Simon returns to the camp with the truth about the beast, which could dispel
the boys' fears. He is killed before he can tell his news., and this plunges the
boys into greater savagery.
After the raid, Ralph and Eric feel proud of how well they fought. They were,
in fact, fighting with each other in the darkness:
‘A knee jerked up between his [Ralph’s] legs and he fell sideways…”When I
woke up one was kicking me in the face…I got my knee up”, said Eric with
simple pride, “and I hit him with it in the pills.”’
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The rock which kills Piggy clears a space in the thicket - enabling Ralph to
escape the hunters and so survive.
IRONY (continued)
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Jack's hunters set fire to the bushes to smoke out and kill Ralph. It is
this fire which draws attention to the island and effects the boys'
rescue
The boys are taken away from the 'war' on the island by a naval officer
who is involved in, and returning them to, another war.
The naval officer has “a revolver”, and his ship holds a “sub-machine
gun”. The reader thinks that the boys are saved by civilisation, but
civilisation itself is forcing its control over the boys with violence, just
like Jack does.
It can be seen then that irony is a type of reversal of ideas, and
shows how seemingly good events can often lead to bad - and
vice versa.
ALLEGORY
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Golding uses many indirect references to classical literature, mythology, and
Christian symbolism.
He deals mainly with evil and emerges with what has been characterized as a
kind of dark optimism. Golding uses characters to describe conflicts and
traits inherent in society and its members.
He feels that man is inherently evil, and this evil must be confronted and
controlled and that society is both a victim and controller of this evil.
Though the literal story in itself is interesting, his novels represent universal
truths about human nature. His novels are also, in some respects, close to
actuality.
There is realism in his use of physical detail and like many writers he uses his
personal experiences in writing his novels, for instance, Lord of the Flies
depends on his accurate observation and recording, as well as his knowledge
of the old English Epic and experience of the terrors and tensions of war.
As a young man, he believed that man would be able to perfect himself by
improving society and eventually doing away with all social evil. Golding
angrily disapproves against those who think that it is the political or other
systems that create evil. To him, evil springs from the depths of man himself.
It is the wickedness in human beings that creates the evil systems, or, what
was good from the beginning, into something unjust and destructive.
Remember boys, you can’t escape
from the darkness inside you. So
don’t try it on, or I’ll do you. See?
END