Order and Disorder in Lord of the Flies Essay Example

Piggy find a conch shell and decide it will be used to gather every one on the island and who ever is holding it shall be able to talk. Everyone agrees on this and this is the first rule on the island.

Throughout the first 3 chapters the boys on the island are still relating to civilisation, they have implemented rules and started up a fire that will signal passing ships. In these chapters the society the boys have created resembles a political society, with the “littluns” being the common people and the older boys resembling the powerful people. Piggy, Simon and Ralph represent the people who will use their power for the common good while Jack and Roger represent the people who believe that you should only worry about your own desires and treat the rest of the boys on the island like servants.

We can see the main theme of civilisation and savagery by seeing that Ralph and Simon are nice to the “littluns” while Roger and Jack are cruel. Showing how the two societies conflict each other. By chapter 6 the idea of civilisation begins to erode between the boys, the breakdown of morality and order is the belief of a beast on the island. The beast becomes an increasingly important aspect of the boy’s lives on the island. It is a popular symbol in the novel that represents the terror of the desires for violence, power and savagery that is in every person’s soul.

But we realise later in the novel that the beast does not exist on the island but inside each boy’s mind and soul, the disorder over order and savagery over

civilisation that overwhelms each one of them. Another contrast between order and disorder which is communicated through another of the novel’s major symbols is the conch shell which is associated with Ralph and using power for the common good. The conch shell is a powerful democratic object on the island, resembling both Ralph’s leadership, which was the first sign of democracy on the island, determined by an election and the power the boys have to re-create their own society.

Yet, as the conflict between Jack and Ralph deepens the conch shell looses symbolic importance. Jack declares the conch shell is meaningless as a symbol of order and authority, and its decline of importance resembles the decline of civilisation on the island. In the novel Piggy represents the intellectual side of civilisation, he is the science of the boy’s society, we recognise this in the first few chapters when his glasses are used to start the signal fire on the island. Piggy’s glasses are significant because of the role they play in the breaking down of the order on the island.

Without his glasses he is helpless and also foreshadows Ralphs group of boys being helpless without them when Jack steals them to over power the rest of the boys. This example shows how Jack is turning to violence and savagery to take over power from Ralph, order is becoming lost in between the two characters conflicts. A quote which refers to this is in chapter 2 “Give em’ back! I can hardly see! You’ll break the conch! ” this quote also foreshadows the breaking of the conch later in the novel, which in turn is the last

breakdown of civilisation on the island.

Lord of the Flies is a novel which depicts the harsh reality of society, people that use power for the common good are over come by people that use power for their own advantage turning into savages. As the boys spend more time away from civilisation and order their inner evil and savageness develops. Golding’s use of character development, symbolism and foreshadowing show the disintegration of a society because of the desire for power, selfishness and amorality everybody’s souls hold.