How Effective and Convincing is Golding's Use of Symbolism? Are Some Symbols More Successful than Others?

"Lord of the Flies" is a highly symbolic novel, written in a technique filled with totemic emblem that helps to represent dramatic conflicts. William Golding tries to communicate across the reader concerning evil in man kind, and does this very effectively. In order for Golding to successfully get his message across, with full understanding of the subject, he uses symbolism, themes and imageries to represent hidden emblems that reflect the real world today. This way, Golding gets his message across whilst entertaining the reader simultaneously, which is very effective. It helps the reader to get a better understanding about the situation, rather than just explaining his message and reasonings. However, Golding does not immediately symbolizes his philosophy of evil, but rather allows it to flow from a serious of events. Some symbols are more obvious than others, some more effective. This essay will examine Golding's use of symbolism and their effectiveness.

Oliver Golding

Oliver Golding

Goldings

Where all his symbols necessary and effective? How successful were they?

Symbols play a very important role in the development of the story because firstly, they help readers understand the plot easier because they are representations of objects or characters of reality. Secondly, these symbols have unique characteristics which help to twist the development of the story. For example, Piggy's glasses represent intelligence and later on becomes the device used to make the fire, eventually saving the boys from the island. You cannot replace glasses with a different object, and having the same representations. For example a book, would only represent intelligence, but it cannot make a fire.

One of the most significant, obvious and powerful symbol that the reader first stumbles upon in the beginning of the novel, is the conch. The conch in the beginning is used to summon the boys who were scattered around the island...