Plot summary

In the midst of a wartime evacuation, a British plane crashes onto an isolated island in a remote region of the Pacific Ocean. The only survivors are male children below the age of thirteen. [6] Two boys, the fairhaired Ralph and an overweight, bespectacled boy reluctantly nicknamed "Piggy", find a conch, which Ralph uses as a horn to bring all the survivors to one area. Ralph emerges as one of the survivors' leaders during the meeting, as does Jack Merridew, a member of a boys' choir that survived the crash. The survivors elect Ralph as their "chief", losing only the votes of Jack's fellow choirboys, who support their leader. Ralph asserts two primary goals: to have fun and to maintain a smoke signal that could alert passing ships to their presence on the island. The boys decide that a conch shell they found embodies the society they shall create on the island, and declare that whoever holds the conch shall also receive the respect of the larger group. Jack organises his choir group into a hunting party responsible for discovering a food source; Ralph, Jack, and a boy named Simon soon form a troika of leaders. Piggy, although Ralph's only confidante, is quickly made an outcast by his fellow "biguns" (older boys) and becomes an unwilling source of laughs for the other children. Simon, in addition to supervising the project of constructing shelters, feels an instinctive need to protect the younger boys. The semblance of order imposed by Ralph and Simon quickly deteriorates as the majority of the boys turn idle and begin to develop paranoias about the island, referring to a supposed monster, the "beast", which dwells nearby. Jack, who has started a power struggle with Ralph, gains control of the discussion by boldly promising to kill the beast. At one point, Jack summons all of his hunters to hunt down a wild pig, drawing away those assigned to maintain the signal fire. After the fire burns out, a ship passes by the island, but does not stop as it has seen nothing amiss. Angered by this, Ralph considers relinquishing his position, but is convinced not to do so by Piggy. While Jack schemes against Ralph, twins Sam and Eric, now assigned to the maintenance of the signal fire, see the corpse of a fighter pilot in the dark. Mistaking the corpse for the beast, they run to the cluster of shelters that Ralph and Simon have erected and warn the others. This unexpected meeting sees tensions between Jack and Ralph flare again. Shortly thereafter, Jack decides to lead a party to the other side of the island, where a heap of stones forms a place where he claims the beast resides. Only Ralph and Jack's supporter Roger agree to go; Ralph turns back shortly before the other two boys. When they arrive at the shelters, Jack calls an assembly and tries to turn the others against Ralph, asking for them to remove him from his position. Receiving little support, Jack, Roger, and another boy leave the shelters to form their own tribe. The tribe, which receives recruits from the main group of boys, grows in strength and begins to adopt customs common to primitive cultures, including face paint and bizarre rituals including sacrifices to the beast. When the tribe grows to a size that rivals Ralph's, they begin to harass those who remain at the shelters and make pronouncements encouraging them to abandon Ralph and the societal order he has imposed. Simon, unable to bear the stress of his position, goes off to think. Alone, he finds a severed pig head, left by Jack as an offering to the beast. Simon envisions the pig head, now swarming with scavenging flies, as the "Lord of the Flies" and believes that it is talking to him. Simon hears the pig identifying itself as the real "Beast" and disclosing the truth about itself that the boys themselves "created" the beast, and that the real beast was inside them all. Simon also locates the dead parachutist who had been mistaken for the beast, and is the sole member of the group to recognise that the "monster" is a corpse. Simon, hoping

to tell others of the discovery, finds Jack's tribe in the island's interior during a ritual dance and, mistaken for the beast, is killed by the frenzied boys. Ralph, Piggy, Sam, and Eric feel guilty about what they did not stop. Jack and his band of "savages" decide that they should possess Piggy's glasses, the only means of starting a fire on the island. Raiding Ralph's camp, the savages confiscate the glasses and return to their abode near the great rock heap, called Castle Rock. Ralph, deserted by most of his supporters, journeys to Castle Rock to confront Jack and secure the glasses. Taking the conch and accompanied only by Piggy, Sam, and Eric, Ralph finds the tribe and demands that they return the valuable object. Turning against Ralph, the tribe takes Sam and Eric captive while Roger drops a boulder from his vantage point above, killing Piggy and shattering the conch. Ralph manages to escape, but Sam and Eric are tortured until they agree to join Jack's tribe. The following morning, Jack orders his tribe to begin a manhunt for Ralph. Fleeing through the forest, Ralph watches as the "savages" set fire to the forest, drawing the attention of a passing naval vessel. Saved by the sudden appearance of a landing party from the warship, Ralph weeps for the death of Piggy and the end of innocence that the darkness inherent in human nature has brought to the children.

Allegorical relationships
Ralph
When he and the others arrive on the island, Ralph quickly becomes the chief of the group, not by any harsh, overt or physical action, but by being elected. [7] Ralph is described as having "the directness of genuine leadership".[8] Ralph's first big decision is that they have "got to decide if this is an island". [9] After Ralph, Jack, and Simon discover that they are truly "on an uninhabited island", [10] Ralph suggests that a fire be lit because "if a ship comes near the island they may not notice us". [11] However, towards the end of the book he forgets the initial reason for maintaining the fire. This is representative of the debilitating effects corruption has even on the brightest mind. Ralph may seem to mean well, but often his obsession with being popular overcomes him and he resorts to bullying Piggy to regain his power. Still, in the midst of all the island's chaos, it should be noted that Ralph has a tendency to be polite and logical in the tensest of moments; for example, when the children are obliged to investigate Castle Rock, Ralph takes the lead despite being afraid of "the beast". Ralph is sometimes perceived as partially being a literary tool to aid the audience's realisation of inner evil throughout the duration of the novel; "Ralph wept for the end of innocence ..." Ralph embodies good intentions in the implementation of reason, but ultimately fails to execute these plans soundly. Ralph's refusal to resort to violence throughout the novel is counterpoised by Jack's inherent love of violence. Beginning with his self nomination as hunter, Jack eventually degenerates into the beast he is consumed with slaying. Towards the end of the story, Jack abandons the tribe and forms one of his own. His darkly irresistible nature, along with the lure of meat, immediately sways the majority of the island dwellers to his tribe, which is a much more violent group. Jack's insurrection begins a chain of events that drives the island further into chaos, initially resulting in the frenzied mob murdering Simon during a primal dance, and then culminating with the murder of Piggy by Roger before the group attempts to hunt down Ralph.[12]

Piggy

Piggy has poor eyesight, asthma, and is overweight[13]. He is the most physically vulnerable of all the boys. He appears to be of working-class background, as evidenced by his non-standardCockney speech, [14] but he is the most intellectual of the boys, frequently appealing to reason. By frequently quoting his aunt, he provides the only female voice. Piggy has been described as "the only adult-type figure on the island". [14] His intellect benefits the group only through Ralph; he acts as Ralph's adviser. He cannot be the leader himself because he lacks leadership qualities and has no rapport with the other boys. Piggy relies on the power of social convention. He believes that holding the conch gives him the right to be heard. He believes that upholding social conventions produces results. Piggy asserts that "Life ... is scientific".[15] Ever the pragmatist, Piggy complains, "What good're you doing talking like that?"[16] when Ralph brings up the highly charged issue of Simon's death at their hands. Piggy tries to keep life scientific despite the incident, "searching for a formula" [17] to explain the death. He asserts that the assault on Simon was an accident, and justifiable because Simon asked for it by inexplicably crawling out of the forest into the ring.[17] Piggy is so intent on preserving some remnant of civilization on the island that, after Jack's tribe attacks Ralph's group, he assumes they "wanted the conch",[18] when, in fact, they have come for Piggy's glasses[18] in order to make fire. Even up to the moment of his death, Piggy's perspective does not shift in response to the reality of their situation. Because his eminently intellectual approach to life is modelled on the attitudes and rules of the authoritative adult world, he thinks everyone should share his values and attitudes as a matter of course. When Ralph and Piggy confront Jack's tribe about the stolen spectacles, Piggy asks "Which is better to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill? ... law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?"[19] as if there is no doubt that the boys would choose his preference. In the 2012 film Island, the character Max is a re-imagining of Piggy and is played by actor Robbie Curran.[20]

The Conch
When first blown, it calls the children to an assembly, where Ralph is elected leader. They agree that only the boy holding the conch may speak at meetings to forestall arguments and chaos, and that it should be passed around to those who wish to voice their opinion. The conch symbolises democracy and, like Ralph, civility and order within the group. When Piggy is killed, the conch is smashed into pieces, [19] signalling the end of order and the onset of chaos. [5] Originally the conch is portrayed as being very vibrant and colourful, but as the novel progresses, its colours begin to fade, the same way society begins to fade on the island.

Jack Merridew
Jack epitomises the worst aspects of human nature when unrepressed or un-tempered by society. Like Ralph, Jack is a natural leader. Unlike Ralph, Jack appeals to more primal desires in the children and relies on his status as leader of the choirboys to justify his authority. Although his way of behaving is neither disruptive nor violent at the beginning of the book, he does, at that time, express an unquenchable desire to hunt and kill a pig and spends hours in solitude traversing the island. This first time Jack has an opportunity to kill a pig, he cannot, "because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood". [21] After this hesitation, for which he is most ashamed, Jack's blood lust grows more and more irrational, to the point where he

abandons the fire (and causes the boys to miss a potential rescue) in order to hunt. During Jack's metamorphosis, he begins to paint his face with clay and earth, masking his humanity from the pigs and inspiring terrible awe amongst the boys. Jack's transition puts him on a collision course with Ralph's elected authority. As Jack leaves and takes the majority of the boys with him, lured by the promises of meat, play, and freedom, there has arisen a clear dividing line between the two. Jack represents the irrational nature of the boys, while Ralph represents rationality. Under Jack's rule, the baseness of human nature is unleashed, and he initiates a period of inter-tribal violence, punishing other children, inciting the frenzy that leads to the murder of Simon, and torturing the twins until they submit to his authority. The tale ends with Jack leading many of the boys in a frenzied attempt to kill Ralph. At this time, the last remaining vestiges of civilization are gone, and Ralph's demise is only prevented by the abrupt and unexpected arrival of a naval officer, who is disappointed by the savage nature of the British boys. [12]

Roger
Roger, at first, is a simple "bigun" who is having fun during his stay on the island. Along with Maurice, he destroys the sand castles made by three small children. While Maurice feels guilt for kicking sand into a child's eye, Roger begins to throw stones at one of the boys. The book states that Roger threw the stones to miss, and felt the presence of civilization and society preventing him from harming the children. [22] Later, once he feels that all aspects of conventional society are gone, he is left alone to his animal urges. During a pig hunt, Roger shoves a sharpened stick up the animal's rectum while it is still alive. [23] He kills Piggy with a boulder that was no longer aimed to miss, and becomes the executioner and torturer of Jack's tribe. He also tortured Sam and Eric into joining Jack's tribe. In the final hunt for Ralph at the end of the novel, Roger is armed with "a stick sharpened at both ends," [24] indicating his intentions of killing Ralph and offering his head as a sacrifice to the "beast". He represents the person who enjoys hurting others, and is only restrained by the rules of society. [25]

Simon
Simon is a character who represents peace and tranquillity and positivity. He is in tune with the island, and often experiences extraordinary sensations when listening to its sounds. He loves the nature of the island. He is positive about the future. He has an extreme aversion to the pig's head, the "Lord of the Flies", which derides and taunts Simon in a hallucination. After this experience, Simon emerges from the forest to tell the others that the "beast" that fell from the sky is actually a deceased parachutist caught on the mountain. He is brutally killed by the boys, who ironically mistake him for the beast and kill him in their "dance" in which they "ripped and tore at the beast". It is implied that Ralph, Piggy, Sam and Eric partake in the killing. The final words that the Lord of the Flies had said to Simon vaguely predicted that his death was about to occur in this manner. Earlier in the novel Simon himself also predicts his own death when he tells Ralph that he will "get back all right",[26] implying that, of the two of them, only Ralph will be saved. Simon's death represents the loss of truth, innocence, and common sense.[12] Simon is most commonly interpreted as a Christ figure because of his ability to see through misconception, unlike the rest of the boys, and the events he experiences in the book that parallel those of Jesus' life.

Naval Officer
Arriving moments before Ralph's seemingly impending death, the Royal Navy officer is surprised and disappointed to learn that the boys' society has collapsed into chaos. He states that he would have

expected "a better show"[27] from British children. The sudden looming appearance of an adult authority figure instantly reduces the savagery of the hunt to a brutal children's game. Upon the officer asking who is in charge, Ralph answers loudly, "I am",[27] and Jack, who was previously characterised as a powerful leader, is reduced to "A little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap on his red hair and who carried the remains of a pair of spectacles at his waist". [27] In the last sentence, the officer, embarrassed by the distress of the children, turns to look at the cruiser from which his party has landed a symbol of his own adult war.

The Beast
The Beast is first mentioned by a "littlun" and the notion is immediately dismissed by Ralph. The Beast is thought to be within the water and described by the littluns as such. Soon after the rumours of the Beast begin to flourish, the corpse of a fighter pilot, ejected from his aircraft, falls to the island. His parachute becomes entangled in the jungle foliage in such a way that sporadic gusts of wind cause the chute to billow and the body to move as if still alive. Sam and Eric discover the parachutist in the dark and believe that it is the beast. Ralph, Jack, and Roger search for the Beast and encounter it on the mountain. The reality of the Beast is now firmly established in the boys' minds. Simon discovers the parachutist and realises that the beast is really only the corpse of a man. Jack's tribe feeds the Beast with the sow's head on a stick. This act symbolises Jack's willingness to succumb to the temptation of animalism. Simon is the first child on the island to realise that the Beast is created by the boys' fear. He decides that "the news must reach the others as soon as possible".[28] Meanwhile, the boys have been feasting and begin to do their tribal pig-hunting dance. When "the beast stumble[s] in to the horseshoe", [29] the frenzied, terrified boys "leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore". [30]It becomes clear that the boys have mistaken Simon for the beast and murdered him both when Golding describes "Simon's dead body move[ing] out towards the open sea",[31] and on the morning after when Ralph tells Piggy, "That was Simon .... That was murder".[16]

The Lord of the Flies

The eponymous Lord of the Flies is a pig's head that has been cut off by Jack, put on a stick sharpened at both ends, stuck in the ground and left as an offering to the "beast". Created out of fear, the Lord of the Flies is the remnant of a mother sow who, though at one time loving, and innocent, has now become a manically smiling, bleeding image of horror. Near the end of the book, while Ralph is being hunted down, he strikes this twice in one moment of blind anger, causing it to crack and fall on the ground with a grin "now six feet across".[32] The name "Lord of the Flies" is a literal translation of Beelzebub.

Originally published in 1954, William Golding's Lord of the Flies has become one of the classics of contemporary literature. Golding's style is crisp and never burdened with flowery prose. The seriousness of his style lends to the deep issues that his work presents. Through Lord of the Flies, Golding successfully explores issues of religion, innocence, morality, and society using the allegory as his method. What is An Allegory? In literature, writers often use different methods, including allegory, to convey their ideas. An allegory, from the Greek words meaning "other" and "to speak", is a literary device which conveys meaning through symbols, actions, and even characters. In the Lord of the Flies , the setting, the

characters, and even some of the symbols serve to convey feelings about leadership, order, civilization, control, and culture. Allegoric Elements in Lord of the Flies Lord of the Flies is more than just a story of privileged young English boys being stranded on an island. In his book, the island actually represents how people view society. Through his pages, Golding offers the boys as the well-mannered representatives of their world. Without the influence of adults, the young men attempt to model their world after the adult world beyond the waters. The order that exists in the outside world soon decays and is replaced by the chaos that destroys ordered and civilized cultures. A related allegorical element is the device of order itself. The island as the place, order as the true issue in society. Situations manifest which tempt the boys desire for order. While logic and manners rules in the beginning, the boys soon realize that logic does not feed stomachs. Structure and civility are replaced by savagery and ruthlessness. The voice of reason is replaced by primal fears and needs. The characters are also allegoric in nature. Ralph, the central character, serves as the moral and social compass of the book. He is caring and seeks to mimic the world in which all the boys originated. Roger, one of the older boys, represents the fringe elements that are easily controlled by more primal needs of hunger, control and brutality. As Simon represents innocence and goodness, Piggy represents pure intellect. These characters mimic the crucial elements- security, leadership, morality and scientific discovery, in our own civilized culture. Each of the elements offers a check and balance to the other, but if anyone if lost, the entire system decays into anarchy. Lord of the Flies are rich with allegoric symbols as well. The conch shell, which is found on the beach, stands as a symbol of civilization and democratic process. It is used to call the young castaways to order. Once the conch is disregarded, the boys slipped into a world of savagery, dictatorship, and murder. Piggy's Glasses are also a symbol of science and intellect. They are a source for the creation of fire for the whole community, but they are the possession of one member. That one member requires that glasses for sight and essentially the ability to be able to maneuver in society. Once the glasses are taken, Piggy's vulnerability is clear. The signal fire also is a key allegoric symbol. It represents the boys initial need to feel connected to their home culture and society. The maintenance of the fire proves the boys desire toe remain a part of the traditional society. As the young boys become more savage, their desire to remain connected wanes. The Lord of the Flies is a story rich with allegoric elements and themes. While it may seem to be a narrative telling of young boys being marooned on an island, it is more of a caution to society. Golding cleverly shows how individuals can be swayed by order and eventually corrupted by power,

in the absence of order. Lord of the Flies is an incredible novel which cautions us with allegory and allegoric elements. Using this style, Golding effectively tells his tale and causes us pause. As a novelist, William Golding developed a unique style characterized by simplicity and economy of expression. He deliberately refrained from excessive narration and consistent characterization. His treatment of the novel has been called 'anti-science' since he equated scientific and technological progress with dehumanization and traced the shortcomings of the modern society to the inherent negativity of human nature. His first novel, Lord of the Flies was published in 1957. The work features a group of schoolboys abandoned in an island and forced to survive without adult supervision. Initially the boys attempt to organize themselves on the lines of their parent civilization. Later, they transform to a more primitive societal pattern dominated by blood-thirst, cruelty, aggression and rituals. The underlying theme of the work is 'end of innocence'. In many ways, the novel has a fable-orientation, conveying morals allegorically, the most fundamental being the 'darkness of man's heart'. The author's psychological insights are brought to fore by concise depiction of perverted behavior and degrading moral standards.
The four major characters, Jack, Ralph, Piggy and Simon, represent passion, will, reason and conscious respectively. On the basis of this 'human-self' analysis, Golding explores the mutual interactions of various characters. The revelations underline the basic antagonisms of human nature. The author firmly believes men must learn to live with the chaos of existence without attempting to reshape it towards his means or ends. While man cannot alter his nature, Golding feels, he can certainly be conscious of it. And it is this consciousness, according to him, that contains the supreme achievement and delight of being a human being. A study of the psychological insights in the Lord of the Flies clearly underlines the degeneration of virtuous characters into diabolic. Golding's reflections on the darkness in human nature emerge life-like in his analysis of the microcosm of the unknown island. The work characterizes Golding's underlying theme 'man produces evil as a bee produces honey'. In all his works the author has relentlessly pursued the objective of making man face 'the sad fact of his own cruelty and lust' and has upheld the conviction 'man is a fallen being'. The fact that man is gripped by original sin and is in an inherently perilous state justifies evil and its innate fusion with human existence. Lord of the Flies is the story of death and the presence of destructive element in the blood's lust for blood. In Golding's own view, it is a story of the darkness in the heart of man. For adolescents and young adults, who have only recently come in contact with their selfconsciousness, it is a new, intense, frightening and yet, fascinating encounter with darkness. The four aspects of human-self, as portrayed by Golding in the novel, can be likened to a phenomenological description of human nature. Will as human self: Golding's vehicle of truth is the end of innocence experienced by Ralph, a high-spirited, confident, twelve-year old. Right from the beginning, Ralph is the only character who demonstrates his resolve for creating a democratic society. Initially, he is exultant due to the new freedom. At the end however, he longs for the tame and is bitterly at odds with others. Soon after being in the island, he finds the leadership of the community thrust upon him. He is antagonistic to Jack and intellectually inferior to Piggy. He is the quintessential symbol of democracy, torn between diverse forces. When he discovers a conch shell (a motif of authority) and blows it, he succeeds in gathering all the others. His leadership qualities are evident in his capacity to assemble others and organize

meetings with confidence. Faced with disobedience, he reacts strongly. 'Choir! Stand still', so his order is obeyed. Immediately after Ralph is elected he organizes everything like; 'the choir belongs to you of course... They could be your army'. Then he says, 'listen everybody, I've got to have time to think things out'. (Pg. 31) The humanistic view of psychological behavior suggests that individuals are free to determine and choose their actions. Man is left free for his will and destiny. In Ralph's case he is free on will. Throughout, he displays his will for forming a democratic society despite impediments like sacrificing his close friend Piggy. Conceptually, will is defined as 'the mental power by which a person can direct his thoughts and actions or influence others'. Ralph is determined to achieve a civilized society. Civilization is a human creation, restricting the cosmic or primitive in man by bounding it within moral awareness. Till the end, Ralph runs to save his life without succumbing to the barbarians, underlining his will power. He is symbolized by the author as the strong willed politician, exhibiting leadership qualities like selfless dedication, courage, conviction, fortitude and integrity. He tries to make full use of all these faculties in bringing back control to civilized society. Ralph's pristine status is individuation. He has a social identity, correct manners, morality and sense of justice. All these are hallmarks of civilization imbibed in him. But because of his innocent state, he uses will to proceed with civilized manners. Eventually, Jack's domination forces him to forego innocence. His loss of innocence is accompanied by the progressive destruction of his distinct conscious due to degradation of reason. Golding clearly establishes that 'will power' would be relevant only in civilized and not in primitive society. Passion as human self: Passion is connected with the character of Jack. According to psychologists, 'passion has got a division of thought and feeling'. This dichotomy is important in analyzing passion. In Jack, passion is embodied in a negative sense with Golding utilizing Jack for demonstrating the degeneration of civilization. The term 'doubling' is commonly used in psychological behavior meaning split personalities for one person, or two relative autonomous selves. Doubling is easily applicable to Jack. His mind houses a number of primitive ideas and he can be called to possess savage traits. His features resemble those of a dictator, thirsty for power and hungry for authority. Jack's passion for power is evident when he says; 'I ought to be chief because I'm chapter chorister and head boy'. In the Lord of the Flies, Golding takes recourse to an established literary method of examining human rights and polity through psychological insights. Nature in the tropics is sinister and threatening. The boys are led to the formation of a religion under Jack's leadership for largely personal selfish gains. Their theology is demonology and their god is devil. Jack has intuitive knowledge of the vilest elements of nature and the ways of exploiting them. He is prevented from his attempt to gain power in civilized, orderly society and takes recourse to the inherent traits of his nature i.e. dark means for gaining power. As Freud points out in his theory of psychoanalysis, human behavior is determined by innate and immutable instincts that are largely unconscious. This is heavily exemplified by Jack. In terms of psychoanalysis, Jack is a schizoid, an irrational person suffering from delusions and withdrawing from normal social relationships. He is deluded by adult-free society and controls the savages. Passion centers on powerful emotions like drive, motivation, libido etc. The first two inspire him to leadership. Passion also induces hostility in his unconscious mind and makes it a conscious motive. In the beginning, Jack hunts pigs for sporting. He resents killing of pigs due to the enormity of the knife and it's cutting into living flesh. Kelly defines aggression as 'the active

elaboration of one's perceptual field'. Aggression arises out of the willingness to risk in order to find out 'passion' for embodiment of action. Passion, the human-self of Jack, is embodied with aggression. His passion for power drives him to diabolism. He is Golding's quintessential metaphor for underlining darkness in human beings. Rationality as human self: The name Piggy has an irony in it. He possesses both positive and negative attributes of a weak intellectual. He rationalizes Simon's death before his own and is the only one to rationalize all events. Together with Ralph, he attempts to create an orderly society. His rationality however, is ineffective in controlling the rest. His belief that science can explain everything makes him unable to comprehend the reality of the beast. Faith in science or rationality, with a marked disbelief in the supernatural, is typical of Piggy. He is fat and ugly with thin hair that never seems to grow and suffers from asthma and weak eyes that are common affiliations of age. His physical weaknesses and other characteristics are consistent with his 'adult' role in the novel. Though he is the clear thinker, he can't enforce his will like Ralph or Jack. The boys refuse to take him seriously due to his shabby appearance. Piggy symbolizes the force of reason among the boys. His gradual loss of sight and eventual death highlight the degeneration among the community. He is possessed with the strong urge to distinguish and order a manageable system and finds himself in conflict with the power of darkness. His wisdom could've been instrumental for achieving stability in the social order. But the leaders were reckless and thoughtless, more interested in momentary splurges rather than the steady glow of reason. When a chance for rescue goes abegging, the boys focus on hunting, a primitive activity reversing civilization, trampling Piggy's intellectual views. Piggy remains indefatigably himself till his death using logic and reason. Though physically weak, he doesn't lack mental courage. Despite Golding's faith in science and rationality, he is sarcastic of Piggy for not accepting Simon's view that evil is present in every man's heart. With Piggy's death, the remaining not only get degenerated, but completely devoid of human control that comes from rational awareness. Conscious as human self: Simon is an embodiment of vision and forethought. This is clearly brought out when he points out that the beast that they all fear is not real and actually lies within themselves. He fails in convincing others and is eventually clubbed to death. He suffers from epilepsy, is visited by the Lord of the Flies, bears a touch of the mystic and is the voice of warning. He understands that evil can't be exonerated by pressurizing humans or by forcing them into primitive adaptations. The most self-conscious in his group, he is incapable of speaking in public and prefers solitude. In his epileptic bouts, he communicates with the Lord of the Flies and darkness. His self-knowledge imparts him the highest degree of consciousness among the boys. He is also intimately familiar with the darkness in man and is temperamentally alert to the limits imposable on a man's ego. In the 1840s, a mischievous boy named Tom Sawyer lives with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother, Sid, in the Mississippi River town of St. Petersburg,Missouri. After playing hooky from school on Friday and dirtying his clothes in a fight, Tom is made to whitewash the fence as punishment all of the next day. At first, Tom is disheartened by having to forfeit his day off. However, he soon cleverly persuades his friends to trade him small treasures for the privilege of doing his work. He trades the treasures he got by tricking his friends into whitewashing the fence for tickets given out in Sunday school for memorizing Bible verses, which can be used to claim a Bible as a prize. He received enough tickets to be given the Bible. However, in response to a question to show off his knowledge, he incorrectly answers that the first disciples were David and Goliath.

Tom falls in love with Becky Thatcher, a new girl in town, and persuades her to get "engaged" by kissing him. Becky kisses Tom, but their romance collapses when she learns that Tom has been "engaged" previously, to a girl named Amy Lawrence. Shortly after being shunned by Becky, Tom accompanies Huckleberry Finn, the son of the town drunk, to the graveyard at night to try out a "cure" for warts with a dead cat. At the graveyard, they witness the murder of young Dr. Robinson by the NativeAmerican "half-breed" Injun Joe. Scared, Tom and Huck run away and swear a blood oath not to tell anyone what they have seen. Injun Joe frames his companion, Muff Potter, a hapless drunk, for the crime. Potter is wrongfully arrested, and Tom's anxiety and guilt begin to grow. Tom, Huck, and Tom's friend run away to an island to become pirates. While enjoying their newfound freedom, the boys become aware that the community is sounding the river for their bodies. Tom sneaks back home one night to observe the commotion. After a brief moment of remorse at the suffering of his loved ones, Tom is struck by the idea of appearing at his funeral and surprising everyone. Back in school, Tom gets himself back in Becky's favor after he nobly accepts the blame for a book that she has ripped. Soon, Muff Potter's trial begins, and Tom, overcome by guilt, testifies against Injun Joe. Potter is acquitted, but Injun Joe flees the courtroom through a window. Tom then begins to fear for his life as Injun Joe is unapprehended and can easily find out where Tom is. Summer arrives, and Tom and Huck go hunting for buried treasure in a haunted house. After venturing upstairs they hear a noise below. Peering through holes in the floor, they see Injun Joe enter the house disguised as a deaf and mute Spaniard. He and his companion, an unkempt man, plan to bury some stolen treasure of their own. From their hiding spot, Tom and Huck wriggle with delight at the prospect of digging it up. Huck begins to shadow Injun Joe every night, watching for an opportunity to nab the gold. Meanwhile, Tom goes on a picnic to McDougal's Cave with Becky and their classmates. That same night, Huck sees Injun Joe and his partner making off with a box. He follows and overhears their plans to attack the Widow Douglas, a kind resident of St. Petersburg. By running to fetch help, Huck forestalls the violence and becomes an anonymous [Link] he was dead. With huck finnnnnnn behind his grave was laughing. Why didn"t the buri died.

The use of language that is specific to a particular area, the depiction of his characters and people throughout the story, the use of idioms, and the description of places as settings characterize local color. In other words local color is used to express "distinctive natural, social, and linguistic features" ("The Norton Anthology Of American Literature" page 12). Mark Twain often used local color to create realistic characters and settings within his writings. In many of Mark Twain's stories, such as "The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn," he easily gives his characters their own vernacular language. In "The Notorious Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County," Simon Wheeler speaks with a strong accent and it is as if he has actually speaking with a type of "southern drawl" such as when he says the name Daniel he says "Dan'l" ("The Norton Anthology Of American Literature" page 217). His accent and his way of speaking gives the reader the feeling that Simon is a respectable, knowing person. Twain uses this type of dialect for Simon to give him character and to give the reader a better view of Simon's personality. Twain also uses this type of local color in "The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn" where he uses many different types of dialects toMark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) is a
book for readers of all ages. Most readers pick it up young and enjoy it, but too few come back to it later on, when its dark shadings and affectionate satire of small-town life might hit closer to home.

The book sold slowly at first but has since become the archetypal comic novel of American childhood. It begins with several chapters of scene-setting episodic skylarking by Tom and his gang. All the grown-ups in the book fret about Tom, fussing at him about his clothes and his manners, but also about his future, and whether this orphaned boy can ever grow up right. Meanwhile, Tom just wants to cut school, flirt with the new girl, get rich, and read what he pleases. Only after he and his wayward friend Huckleberry Finn accidentally witness a murder will he at last get the chance to live out an adventure as heroic as any in his storybooks. When Tom and his beloved Becky Thatcher become trapped in a dark cave, he must call on all his imagination and ingenuity if he wants even a chance at growing up. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer has likely suffered over the years from unfair comparisons to its famous sequel. Huck gets fuller development in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), where he escapes down the river with the runaway slave Jim and, in spite of himself, begins to discover his conscience. But just because Huckleberry Finn is the deeper book doesn't make Tom Sawyer mere kids' stuff. Twain never could make up his mind whether Tom Sawyer was for kids or grown-ups, and his book is the better for it. If Tom stepped out of his nineteenth-century Missouri small town and into a contemporary American classroom, a guidance counselor would probably tag him as an at-risk latchkey kid. Reading Tom Sawyer today is an invitation to talk about how American childhood has and hasn't changedand also to laugh at Twain's enduring invention of a great American comic voice.