Piggy is an important character in William Golding’s Lord of The Flies. The novel follows a group of boys who crash land on a deserted island. At first, they believe island life is a game; they believe that they will be rescued and will soon return to their normal lives. The reality of the situation, however, is that the world outside of the island is embroiled in war. Gradually, the island becomes a microcosm of the outside world serving as a snapshot of the atrocities and evil going on outside of it. Using Piggy’s physical attributes, mental characteristics, and emotional maturity, Golding makes Piggy a symbol of authority, democracy, and civilization. Piggy’s character plays a major role because he serves as Golding’s personification of intelligent, rational thinking civilization; therefore, he is given internal and external characteristics that make him a figure of pacifist authority.
Golding’s symbolism is apparent in Piggy’s physical features. The boys ostracize him from the beginning because he is overweight, pale, asthmatic, and has a different accent. His pale skin, regardless of how much sun he encounters, shows his deep rooted connection to civilization. Size, athleticism, and physical appearance are indicators of status on the island, so due to his physical limitations, he becomes a pariah among the boys. Though Piggy is the obvious choice for the boys’ leader, another more good-looking athletic boy, Ralph, is chosen instead. Piggy rules, behind the scenes, through Ralph because Ralph cannot stay composed in pressing situations as Piggy can. Piggy is set apart further by his wispy hair. All of the boys’ hair grows longer except for Piggy who seems balding even at his young age. This gradual difference makes Piggy seem like more of an older authority figure as the days go on and the difference becomes more noticeable. In addition, Piggy wears glasses. His handicaps makes him seem older than he really is to the reader, and with age comes implied wisdom.
As the embodiment of order, Piggy is logically the most emotionally and mentally equipped boy on the island. When all the other boys believe there is a dangerous beast on the island, he is astute enough to realize that a large animal could not possibly sustain itself on the island. He tries to convey the message that there is nothing to fear on the island: “I know there isn’t no beast — not with claws and all that, I mean — but I know there isn’t no fear either” (page 84).
Continuing on, he makes the insightful point that the only thing to be afraid on the island of are the other boys themselves. He stays calm under pressure and thinks through situations intelligently and perceptively; moreover, he is independent enough that he can exist even as pariah on the island. All of the other boys constantly leave him alone to fend for himself and take care of the young boys on the island. Evidently, his independence is a principal factor that keeps him from degenerating into a blood thirsty savage as the rest of the boys do by the middle of the novel. At the beginning of the boys’ journey, he found the conch, a shell that when blown brought all of the boys into meeting. This process allowed the conch to represent order and democracy. Until his death, Piggy tries to maintain a sense of order between the boys.
By the end of the novel, the island becomes divided, and Piggy’s more democratic group is in the minority. His glasses are stolen by the tribe of savages, and in an effort to foster negotiate the return of his glasses, he visits their camp. Instead of visiting them with the intention of violence, Piggy is a diplomat to the end trying to foster peace through discussion. On his voyage he clings to the conch: the last symbol of order and peaceful decision on the island. He arrives in their camp, but he is unable to persuade the savages’ leader Jack to return his stolen glasses. During a scuffle, Jack’s savages, Golding’s representation of an disordered society, drop a boulder on Piggy. He is crushed — killing him and shattering the conch. Here, the boulder is the manifestation of a sudden, radical force. Piggy’s being crushed by a boulder symbolic of a sudden and radical breakdown of civilization. Civilization’s death fittingly, occurs simultaneously with the disintegration of the conch, the last symbol of order of the island. Piggy’s death marks the end of intellectualism on the island.
Piggy’s character is an important allusion to civilization. His personality at the beginning of the novel is similar to his personality at his death. He becomes the one voice of reason on an island of savages, and he clings onto order until his last breath. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies could not have been as effective without Piggy’s character.
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. 1954.
