“The Lord of the Flies” is written by William Golding in 1954. It is a Nobel Prize winning book. “The Lord of the Flies” is a book that should definitely be read because of its surface meaning and deeper meanings.

To start, here is a brief summary of this book. British boys gets stuck on a island because their plane had crashed. They were being sent to a safe place because the UK was in danger of the nuclear warfare. All adults had died so the boys were left on their own. Ralph becomes the leader of this group and emphasizes on how important it is to find shelter. He assigns Jack as the leader for the hunting group. However, later on this book, Jack forms another group. Jack’s groups hunts meat and has feasts. All boys except Ralph and Piggy goes on Jack’s side because they all wanted to eat meat and enjoy feasts instead of keep the fire going or cut wood for shelter. Later on, the boys learns about a fly-covered head and calls it ‘The Beast’. Simon encounters ‘The Beast’ later on but soon discovers it’s the head of the dead parachutists. When he goes tell this fact, all the boys, even Ralph and Piggy were having a feast and looses their control. They believe that Simon’s shadowy figure is the beast and kills him. The next day, Ralph and Piggy gains their control and discusses what they have done. Jack, who was becoming savage, orders the other boys to hunt down the two and kill them. While they were running away, Piggy’s glasses was stolen. Roger, one of the boys following Jack, rolls a boulder down the hill and kills Peggy. Ralph runs away on his own and Jack orders the boys to ignite the forest in order to smoke Ralph out. When Ralph reaches a dead end, he waits for his end but he sees an officer in front of him. The smoke had signaled the officer’s ship and when the other boys that were chasing Ralph arrives, the officer asks them to explain. The boys then notice how they have changed and how they were a group of bloodthirsty children. Overwhelmed by numerous thoughts, the boys begins to cry. The overall context of this book is very interesting because of the new concept of boys killing each other. This context couldn’t be seen in other books but the author still organized this new thought in a orderly fashion. Therefore, it wasn’t hard to understand what the author was trying to tell the readers.

Next, the deeper meaning inside the surface meaning adds more life into the book. The summary states that the British boys were just stuck on an island on their own. This represents a small civilization that was created by them. Ralph is the leader of the group and Jack is the opposition of the leader. In the first part of the group, Ralph and Piggy finds a conch shell that is used as a way to summon all the other boys. The conch shell represents a civilized society and as a powerful symbol of order. The conch shell helps the boys govern their meetings since the boy who is holding the conch has the right to speak. The conch is the democratic power that proves that the boys are in order. However, when the boys begin to become savage, the conch shell looses its power and influence. When Ralph tries to blow the conch shell in order to summon the boys later on in the book, the other boys ignore him. To add, the conch shell was crushed when Roger rolled a boulder onto Piggy which represents that their civilization was coming to an end and the boys turning as savages. In addition, the boys had used Piggy’s eyeglasses in order to light a fire. This symbolizes the ability to light a fire. In fact, Piggy was the most intelligent out of all the boys. His glasses represent the science a human possess and the ability to solve problems. When Jack’s boys steals Piggy’s glasses, Ralph and Piggy are left helpless since they can no longer light a fire. Also, Piggy could no longer see because the glasses was the only way he could see. In the start of the book, the boys had made a signal fire with Piggy’s glasses. The boys had took care of the fire at first but soon, they were more interested in playing around. The signal fire is the connection between the boys and the actual civilization because the boys have a greater possibility of getting rescued through the signal fire. When the boys start to ignore the signal fire and doesn’t care for it, it can be concluded that the boys couldn’t overcome human natural desires of having fun and eating meat. They accepted their savage life instead of finding a way to get out the island. When the fire finally signals a ship to the island, it was signaled by the fire of savory instead of the signal fire. This symbolizes how the boys had changed throughout the book and how they were loosing their childhood innocence. To add, the children had turned into bloodthirsty hunters who murders their own friend. They have no desire of getting rescued, instead, hunts down animals and humans. The children had lost their innocence because the savageness within them that was being suppressed in civilization had come out. All humans have a savage aspect within them but we suppress them. However, the boys had lost their control after seeing blood in that island. The Beast and The Lord of the Flies are two different representation of the change inside the boys. The Beast, which is actually the corpse of the dead parachutist, was portrayed as a beast from the boys. When they first encounter ‘the Beast’ the boys have a fixed mind and believe it’s a beast no matter what. Simon was the first kid to realize the Beast was actually just a dead human and the idea of a Beast was created by the boys themselves. It’s an imaginary beast that frightens all the boys  and the boys doesn’t want to reach out to the truth. As the boys become more savage, the idea of a Beast grows. How the boys behaves is what bring the Beast into the real world and the more savage the boys are, the most live the Beast is. Furthermore, The Lord of the Flies is a pig’s head that has been cut off by Jack, put on a stick that’s sharpened at both ends, and stuck to the ground. It is an offering to the Beast that they are imagining. It’s created out of the fear and it represents the horrifying image of blood. It symbolizes the power of evil inside the boys. The Lord of the Flies is a physical symbolization of the beast. In biblical terms, the Lord of the Flies is the devil while Simon is Jesus. The name ‘Lord of the Flies’ is translated as a biblical name Beelzebub, a powerful demon in hell sometimes thought to be the devil himself. To conclude, the deeper meaning and the symbolism adds the fun of reading this novel.

In conclusion, the surface and deeper meaning inside the novel “The Lord of the Flies” makes this novel a must-read. This novel is very deep yet interesting, therefore, it should be read by everybody.