Lord of the Flies, Piggy

953 WordsOct 8, 19994 Pages
If Only They&#8217;d Listened to Piggy Throughout the novel Piggy&#8217;s character is used to represent the intellectual side of man and act almost like an adult figure to the boys. There are many things that he does and that Golding says to support this. Three things come to mind that represent his place in the novel; he is a clear thinker, his appearance, and his symbolic losses throughout the book. Right off the beginning we see evidence of Piggy&#8217;s thinking ability. He realizes the boys&#8217; situation and is thinking about how they are going to survive. He says &#8220;We got to find the others, we got to do something.&#8221; We then see indication of his intelligence, he says, &#8220;A conch&#8230;he used to…show more content…
When he tries to get his glasses back he his murdered by a small boy that could barely through a rock at someone in chapter 4. The boy rolled a boulder down on him, striking him and killing him. At the same time the conch, which symbolized the traditional system of authority so cherished by Piggy, was crushed. These events show the complete obliteration of rationalism from the island. Jack realizes the all out defeat of his rival and yells, &#8220;I&#8217;m Chief!&#8221; Piggy&#8217;s role in the novel is heavily symbolic. He symbolizes the force of reason among the boys. To the boys what he says mimics that of what their teacher or maybe their parents may have said back home. However due to his appearance they don&#8217;t feel the need or desire to listen to him as they would have listened to their teacher at home. In our world the same is true. Many wise people are shunned simply because of they way they look. This is more evident during our younger years but does continue as we age. At what point will we as a society learn to listen to those people who should help guide the more inane? No one knows, but as in the book things could go wrong. Piggy&#8217;s gradual loss of sight and, eventually, the loss of his life itself, are used to show the &#8220;progressive degeneration of the boys and their
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