analytical paper

In the book lord of the flies, a group of schoolboys from ages six to fourteen crash-landed on an island in the middle of the ocean and are forced to create a new life and rules among one another. Early in the novel you start to see many symbolic figures and objects like the shell in chaperone but I believe that the most symbolic item on the island is the fire because it represents the boys’ hope and desire to be rescued, and how that hope slowly fades away towards the end of the novel. Throughout the book you start to see how the boys’ desire to be rescued fades away and how the fire starts to take on a new role.

            Early on in this book you start to see how important a fire is like in chapter two when Ralph says “if a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we need to make smoke on top of the mountain. So we must make a fire.” This shows how important there need for a fire is and how bad they want to go home. By the end of chapter two you start to see how the fire is slowly starting to cause conflict among the older boys like when piggy is mad after they set half the mountain on fire and says “that little’un” gasped piggy “him with the mark on his face, I don’t see him where is he now? Him that talked about the snakes he was down there” this shows the boys a bit of reality and that they need to start being careful because they are the only form of authority on the island and they need to be safe if they want to make it home.

            After their incident on the mountain Ralph assigns jack and his hunters to maintain the fire and not to let it burn out and him and Simon start to build huts on the beach. Later in chapter three you start to see a little tension between jack and Ralph when Ralph says” they’re hopeless. The older ones aren’t much better d’you see? All day I’ve been working with Simon. No one else. They’re off bathing, or eating, or playing.” This was said to jack after he comes back from hunting all day and he sees Ralph building huts on the beach and Ralph is mad because no one but Simon has been helping him with the huts. Ralph starts to realize he needs to grow up and start acting like and adult figure because everyone else is too busy playing around.

            In chapter four Ralph, Simon, and piggy are on the beach when they see a ship way off in the distance, but when they look back and make sure the smoke signal is still going but they quickly realize that its out and Ralph takes off sprinting towards the mountain with Simon at his heels and piggy close by.  When Ralph reaches the foot of the mountain he realizes that he doesn’t have piggy’s glasses to start the fire back so he waits for piggy to catch up. When Ralph, Simon, and piggy finally reach the top they realize that they have just missed their only chance to be rescued and they are mad and wanting to figure out why jack and his hunters let the fire go out. After they get back to the beach they see jack and his men coming out of the jungle chanting because they finally killed a pig but when Ralph see them he immediately called for a meeting. At the meeting Ralph starts off by scalding jack for leaving the fire alone and tells everyone that they could have been rescued if it wasn’t for the fire going out and Ralph announces that the most important thing on the island is the fire and that it should never go out again.           

            Throughout the book you slowly see how the fire and the boys hope and desire to be rescued starts to fade away and how the boys start to lose control of reality and their savage sides are slowly starting to take control of their lives. I still believe that the fire is the most important thing on the island because at the end of the novel it is the fire that ends up getting them rescued after jack and his hunters lose control of reality and try to kill Ralph by setting the whole island of fire to try and draw him out but all the smoke draws the attention of a navy ship that was close by and they sent out a man who finds and rescued the boys right before they can kill Ralph and the is why I believe the fire is the most symbolic figure on the island.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    By Luke Fitzwater