Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is an adventure story that takes a group of English schoolboys out of civilization, and places them on a island in the Pacific, where they are faced with survival. With out the benefit of adults or Western rules and regulations the boys revert to primal beings; some good, some evil.

The story started when we (as readers), met two of the main and vital characters. Ralph the natural born leader, and Piggy, the character that helped define one of the themes: survival of the fittest. Throughout the beginning of the story we learned through the characters how hard it was to set up a colony, where there was none. Throughout the story, Ralph symbolized rational leadership, order over chaos, and good versus evil. Ralph’s way of dealing with being stranded was to try to establish a little bit of home on the island. Ralph romanticized their plane crash, and envisioned a passionate adventure story in the Pacific, with himself as the god like leader. He took a small clan of children, attempted to turn them into a orderly and passionate work force. While waiting to be rescued, Ralph insisted that they keep a fire on top of the mountain as a signal, he tried to organize them into little clans to recreate England. However, Ralph’s confused reality with his passionate fantasy and was unable to get the bigguns to accomplish anything. He was ultimately defeated, and a new leader, Jack stood up. Ralph changed from a strong, clear thinking boy, into a confused hunted animal, who no longer had the power to confront Jack.

Jack, symbolized anarchy and instant gratification over delayed gratification. Jack allowed his anger at not being voted on in the beginning as leader to cross the line when he felt no remorse for killing two people. He stood for the benefit of himself and his power instead of the long term good of the whole group. He allowed the fire to go out while he was hunting for a pig. Jack sensed the void left by the absence of adults and he stepped in to be a dictator. He used fear and intimidation, and wooed the bigguns with the ‘kill the pig’ story. Jack, took the bigguns and prepared for Ralph’s defeat. Jack decided that the only way for himself to have total power, was to get rid of Ralph. He sharpened sticks as weapons, in preparation. He spun a tale of how he would kill Ralph to intimidate the bigguns and make sure of no revolt. Jack sacrificed a pig to the Lord of the Flies. Jack ceremonialized his killing of Ralph to make it legitimised to kill Ralph. He used sacrifice and fear to keep his position. A man-hunt that would lead to death. Ralph, quickly planned his escape from death. Ultimately, Jack was unsuccessful. While Ralph is tiredly running away from the savages and death, he runs into a naval officer that rescues everyone. When one adult enters the picture, oder is instantly restored, and the savages revert back to school boys. All it took was one adult to let reality smack them in the face and to realized what they allowed to happen. Ralph felt intense remorse for the deaths of Piggy and Simon. In reality he could not have stopped Jack. On the other hand Jack tried to wriggle around any responsibility for his actions. The reader gets a sense that he will twist the truth.

I believe that the characters and what they represent played a integral part in the plot. Throughout the story there were the themes of good vs. evil, order versus chaos, democracy versus totalltarianism which were represented by Ralph, who stands for good, order and democracy versus Jack, who stands for evil, chaos and totalltarianism.Piggy symbolized intellectualism, and human frailty and it lack of importance in survival in the wild. I believe Piggy could have been a great asset to the society, but Jack and Ralph were too proud or blind to allow Piggy to be the hero. In many ways Piggy’s death symbolized the break down of society, in the same way Jesus was crucified. Piggy appeared weak and physically unnatractive, and on first reading of Piggy’s death, the reader is unfazed. On reflection of his death the reader is fazed. After thinking about what he did to help start the colony, and how he didn’t object to people stealing his ideas and morals, we, the readers are faced with guilt. Piggy found Ralph on the day of the crash, he knew what the conch was, and he gave the idea of calling all the children to the platform to try to work out their problems. Piggy wanted nothing for himself.

In this book Golding shows us what can happen to a group of civilized children when the trappings of the world that they know, rules, government, adults, and society with all its expectations are stripped away and they are left to fend for themselves in an alien environment. Golding shows us the worst and in a few cases the best of ourselves. Golding made an argument for law and order in a structured society, based on Christian or decent human values.