Lord of The Flies theme and How the Author Conveys It

9/20/10

The theme i feel is conveyed most in the Lord of The Flies is the theme 'Mankind cannot survive on one kind of intelligence'. This theme is mainly focused on the ideas of Ralph, Piggy, and Jack, and how they all have different ideas on survival. Piggy is more street smart where as ralph is book smart. Jack only focuses on the aspect of finding food to survive.

One way Golding conveys this theme is when Jack first breaks off to start his own tribe. At first, he thinks, for survivals sake, it would be best to spend all the time hunting pigs on the island. without the help of Ralph and Piggy's ideas he soon realizes he needs them, and thats when he decides to steal Piggy's glasses. It shows the conflict in not working in a group effort when in a situation like that. If Jack would've stayed with Piggy and Ralph Simon and Piggy wouldn't have been killed in a panic.

Another way Golding conveys this is when Piggy dies along with the conch. When Piggy dies, Ralph begins to realize just how much Piggy's advice was helping, and how putting their ideas together would've been alot easier than arguing. i dont exactly think the characters could've done anything to prevent the ideas from spiraling out of control, because they did try to put them all in effect. When Ralph is running from the man hunt he has to rely on his own ideas ithout Piggy. An example is when he is deciding whether or not to hide in the tree. Having two intelligences in that situation would've made it easier for Ralph to stay alive, especially if they weren't rescued.