Pigs as a Symbol of Loss of Civility and Innocence in Lord of The Flies

In the novel Lord of the Flies, Golding includes many characters or objects that act as symbols. Pigs are one example that symbolizes many concepts including the loss of civility, innocence as well as the inner desire and want in mankind. To begin, the obsession with pigs symbolizes how the boys are losing their civility. At the beginning of the book, the boys regard pigs as a source of food but clearly do not feel comfortable with killing one, especially in chapter one; “They knew very well why he hadn’t: because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood” (Golding 31). The boys at first, are very nervous about causing harm to another living creature, which would make sense because, in a normal society, a sane, civilized child would not want to purposely kill. Civility for the boys begins to lose meaning when Jack commits to having no mercy when murdering a pig, as shown in chapter one after he misses his chance to kill the piglet. Later on, Golding writes, “the sow staggered her way ahead of them, bleeding and mad, and the hunters followed, wedded to her in lust, excited by the long chase and the dropped blood”. The hunters brutally murder a sow without a second thought, all the while jeering as they stabbed at it, which illustrates their maddening descent into savagery. 

Pigs also symbolize the loss of innocence, as shown in chapter 8, in which the pig that the boys kill is a female who is nursing her piglets. The sow and her piglets are a symbol of innocence because the construct of mother and children is always associated with purity. In a way, it is almost as if these boys are murdering their mothers. Mothers play a huge role in a child’s upbringing and are important figures in their life, and for the boys to mercilessly kill a mother, a harmless animal mother, demonstrates their newfound lack of civility. Their unconcerned attitude towards sentencing a mother to death makes it clear how desensitized they start to become. At this point in the book, the sow is vulnerable, for her only purpose is to nurture her young. This fact does not affect the boys and rather prompts them to murder the mother even more barbarically. 

The pig’s symbolism differs throughout the book because, at the beginning of the novel, the boys regard pigs as a potential food source, and simply that. The reason why the boys want to hunt the pigs is to satisfy their want for meat. However, throughout the novel, the boys become more primitive in their attempts to hunt the pigs. Instead of Jack hunting on his own as he did in chapter three, the pig hunts become more elaborate with a huge group of hunters. In chapter eight, when the boys stumble upon their biggest kill, a sow, Golding illustrates the hunt very vividly, with the kill ending as “Jack found the throat and the hot blood spouted over his hands”. The group of boys, no older than twelve, commit a gruesome murder, which at this point in the novel, in comparison to Jack’s hesitance at the beginning of the book to killing a pig shows how the pigs also change to become a symbol of the boys’ progression in becoming wilder. Amid their bloodlust, these once civilized, English boys become increasingly savage as they are drawn to the blood of the pig. The way the boys act after the kill also reflects on their savagery. “He giggled and flicked them while the boys laughed at his reeking palms”. The boys are laughing at Jack as he smears pig’s blood on his face and flicks the blood from his hand. This makes clear that the boys lose all sense of decency and empathy towards nature. 

In conclusion, though Golding presents many symbols in Lord of the Flies, pigs are a very crucial symbol that is present throughout the whole novel. They symbolize the boys’ loss of civility and innocence and changes throughout the book as the boys change and go through different events.