Throughout Lord of the Flies, William Golding implies many themes and symbols represented through the actions of the boys and the events taking place. Some of the themes are friendship, the need for social order, and loneliness and the need for companionship. A couple of the symbols are leadership (Ralph) and spirituality (Simon). Poems that can go along with these themes and symbols include: The Road not Taken, by Robert Frost, If by Rudyard Kipling, London by William Blake, A light exists in spring by Emily Dickenson, and Fable L: The Hare and Many Friends by John Gay.
The first poem, The Road not Taken, by Robert Frost has a certain degree of loneliness. The speaker is deciding which path to take and at the end he chooses the path less traveled. This is like what Piggy does by choosing “ the road less traveled” and staying with Ralph and not following the others and going to Jack’s group. In choosing this poem I imagined a busy path with everyone going one way and the speaker going lonely down the other way. The poem If, by Rudyard Kipling, compares to the novel by using the symbol of leadership (Ralph).
This poem states that if one keeps their head strait then one will get what they want. The speaker, who is a father, is talking to his son about how to handle things when others are non-cooperative. This poem is similar in theme to the novel at the point when Ralph, though Jack is trying to overthrow him in leadership by acting savage and wild and telling the boys that it is fun, manages to keep his temper down. He doesn’t threaten the boys to stay with him, like Jack does, he lets them go.
Another poem, London by William Blake, has a theme of the need for social order. A man is walking around the streets of London hearing crying children and shouting parents, and sees a trashed and destroyed city. This poem compares to the novel at the point when all the boys are not listening to Ralph and doing whatever they want whenever they want, no huts are being built, and the fire was not being kept going. I chose this poem since it, in my mind, matched the same situation the boys were in when they first landed on the island.
The next poem is A light exists in spring by Emily Dickenson. In this poem Dickenson talks about a light that is not present throughout the year except in spring. The light shows in many places but not for long. This poem compares to the novel though Simon. I chose this poem since it matches the qualities found in Simon, he was always calm, helping the younger boys get food from the trees, and sometimes never around just like the “ light”. The last poem chosen, Fable L: The Hare and Many Friends by John Gay, has the theme of friendship.
This poem is about a hare that is running from a hunter and gets tired. Though she is friends with a lot of the barn animals, no one helps carry her to safety showing that they weren’t really her friends. In choosing this poem, I thought about the end of the novel when Ralph is running from Jack and the rest of the boys. None of the boys, since they became savage, think that killing Ralph is a bad idea. Ralph, at this point, is like the hare and Jack is the hunter. The other boys are like the barn animals.
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, has, at certain points, a theme or symbol which invokes thought or feeling in one’s mind. By doing this, Golding forces one to think beyond the words on the page and imagine the pictures in their mind. A few poems that go along with a few of those themes or symbols are: The Road not Taken, by Robert Frost, If by Rudyard Kipling, London by William Blake, A light exists in spring by Emily Dickenson, and Fable L: The Hare and Many Friends by John Gay
