Lord of the Flies Literary Analysis

William Golding often uses the setting to connect various events that might seem to be completely unrelated. In Lord of the Flies every detail has a second meaning, whether it’s in a religious sense or political. One of the most amazing allegories about Lord of the Flies is that nearly everything parallels with the cold war. Each major character represents a different country and world leader. Ralph represents the USA as President Truman. This is clear because he is always taking the democratic approach, he discusses each idea by calling a meeting with the conch. Jack represents Stalin and the USSR. Jack rules under an iron fist or more literally a combat knife. Jack came to power under the pretense that everything will be fine if the kids stick with him. He took away any hope from the other kids by telling them no one is coming and they will be stuck on the island forever, he then made it seem that his camp has plenty of food to go around and is all around much better than Ralph’s camp. This sort of government that Jack lead under has many distinct similarities to communism. Piggy in this allegory would be Winston Churchill, the prime minister of England during the start of the cold war. Piggy on his own was not powerful, but when allied with Ralph he had strength and brought some order and peace between the two of them.
It is also important to note the truce between Piggy and Ralph was an accurate representation of NATO. Jack and Roger would be the Warsaw Pack in this allegory. In the cold war if any countries in either alliance attacked the other it was clear that it would result in the third world war and potentially the end of civilization as a whole. In the first chapter Piggy says “’…Didn’t you hear what the pilot said? About the atom bomb? They’re all dead.’” (Golding, 17) which shows that England was bombed being the reason that they left. "The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee: the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and