Lord Of The Flies, By William Golding

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding utilizes thunder as a herald of an impending victory for savagery. Golding employs the power of this roaring natural phenomenon as a subtle nod to how nature supports the savagery the boys begin to express. He does this through depicting the booming thunder immediately before events that revert the boys’ learned goodness. These events that show the dominance of savagery include the murder of the sow, Ralph and Piggy’s fall into temptation to eat the meat, the conversion of the boys to Jack’s tribe, and the death of Simon. Thunder appears three times towards the end of chapter nine, when Golding writes, “All at once the thunder struck. Instead of the dull boom there was a point of impact in the explosion”