What does the Lord of the Flies symbolize?

Question

(the pigs head)

Answer 1

The Lord of the Flies is the bloody, severed sow’s head that Jack impales on a stake in the forest glade as an offering to the beast. This complicated symbol becomes the most important image in the novel when Simon confronts the sow’s head in the glade and it seems to speak to him, telling him that evil lies within every human heart and promising to have some “fun” with him. (This “fun” foreshadows Simon’s death in the following chapter.) In this way, the Lord of the Flies becomes both a physical manifestation of the beast, a symbol of the power of evil, and a kind of Satan figure who evokes the beast within each human being. Looking at the novel in the context of biblical parallels, the Lord of the Flies recalls the devil, just as Simon recalls Jesus. In fact, the name “Lord of the Flies” is a literal translation of the name of the biblical name Beelzebub, a powerful demon in hell sometimes thought to be the devil himself.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/flies/themes.html

Answer 2

Funny you should ask, I'm just rereading it now as I'm waiting to go home from the office : )
The Lord of the Flies is tearing apart the myth that is civilization by showing how thin the veneer really is. It takes very little for the boys on the island to revert to a sort of heathenism in the book. The pig's head is an extension of that.

Answer 3

I hated that book!! ooo9th grade!! The book basically says when you take civilized boys away from civilization, they become animals. I don't know specifically if I can symbolize the pigs head. Yahoo. "Lord of the flies" there are several sites that analyze it. Be sure to cite your sources in your report.

Answer 4

Read more about the symbolisms of Lord of the Flies here:

Answer 5

What happens in a world with no government. The boar's head is basically this, because it starts out seeming all fine and good, but over time it goes rotted and covered with flies, like the boys' lives in the book.

Answer 6

the last answer is your best bet. I had to reread this book for a Poli Sci. class in college. The pigs head actually symbolizes the breakdown of government. When government and society faily to peacfully coexist the result is chaos.

Answer 7

Beelzebub, the traditional name for the devil, can be translated into English as "The Lord of the Flies". Basically, what he represents is the widely-used literary concept of loss of innocence, particularly in children.

Answer 8

it symbolizes piggy's imagination as well as the state of all manhood, the pig head shows piggy their wrong doings so it is like the conscience of the story

Answer 9

communism and how it doesnt work becuase everyone wants to be better than the rest, to have more than everybody else. what happens is everyone is on a level playing field and you are supposed to share the work, help somebody when they need it and everyone is hunky dory. but, its in our nature to try and be better than someone else. the boys setup their own form of government (dictatorship) and kept some of the others out of their "society".

Answer 10

the fear of the unknown and the delicate balance our society lives in. It gives an example of how easily we slip back into the barbaric ways of our past.