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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Forest Fire:
During Chapter 2, after discovering Piggy's glasses can be used to spark a flame, the boys accidentally set a forest fire. The passage makes heavy use of figurative language:
One patch touched a tree trunk and scrambled up like a bright squirrel. The smoke increased, sifted, rolled outwards. The squirrel leapt on the wings of the wind and clung to another standing tree, eating downwards. Beneath the dark canopy of leaves and smoke the fire laid hold on the forest and began to gnaw. Acres of black and yellow smoke rolled steadily toward the sea. […] The flames, as though they were a kind of wild life, crept as a jaguar creeps on its belly toward a line of birch-like saplings that fledged an outcrop of the pink rock. They flapped at the first of the trees, and the branches grew a brief foliage of fire. The heart of flame leapt nimbly across the gap between the trees and then went swinging and flaring along the whole row of them.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Great Beard of Flame:
In chapter two, the boys successfully make a fire for the first time, and several literary devices are used to describe it:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The pile was so rotten, and now so tinder-dry, that whole limbs yielded passionately to the yellow flames that poured upwards and shook a great beard of flame twenty feet in the air. For yards round the fire the heat was like a blow, and the breeze was a river of sparks. Trunks crumbled to white dust.
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Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—A Long Satisfying Drink:
In Chapter 4, Jack and his hunters kill a pig instead of keeping the fire lit as Ralph had asked. As Ralph yells at Jack for abandoning his post, Jack doesn't listen. The passage uses both metaphor and simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink.
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Explanation and Analysis—Pearly Sunshine:
In Chapter 4, the author uses imagery and metaphor to describe how the boys grow accustomed to the island's natural cycles:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The first rhythm that they became used to was the slow swing from dawn to quick dusk. They accepted the pleasures of morning, the bright sun, the whelming sea and sweet air, as a time when play was good and life so full that hope was not necessary and therefore forgotten. Toward noon, as the floods of light fell more nearly to the perpendicular, the stark colors of the morning were smoothed in pearl and opalescence; and the heat—as though the impending sun’s height gave it momentum—became a blow that they ducked, running to the shade and lying there, perhaps even sleeping.
Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Picking a Path:
In Chapter 5, Ralph paces the beach as he tries to decide what he'll say to the boys at the assembly. The narrator uses metaphor to describe his thought process:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The tide was coming in and there was only a narrow strip of firm beach between the water and the white, stumbling stuff near the palm terrace. Ralph chose the firm strip as a path because he needed to think, and only here could he allow his feet to move without having to watch them. Suddenly, pacing by the water, he was overcome with astonishment. He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life, where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one’s waking life was spent watching one’s feet.
Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—The Ocean Leviathan:
In Chapter 6, Ralph looks out at the ocean while exploring Castle Rock, and the narrator uses a variety of literary devices to describe it:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Now he saw the landsman’s view of the swell and it seemed like the breathing of some stupendous creature. Slowly the waters sank among the rocks, revealing pink tables of granite, strange growths of coral, polyp, and weed. Down, down, the waters went, whispering like the wind among the heads of the forest. There was one flat rock there, spread like a table, and the waters sucking down on the four weedy sides made them seem like cliffs. Then the sleeping leviathan breathed out, the waters rose, the weed streamed, and the water boiled over the table rock with a roar. There was no sense of the passage of waves; only this minute-long fall and rise and fall.
Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Unsuspicious Pigs:
In Chapter 8, Jack and his hunters track down a group of pigs, in a passage that employs metaphor and personification:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The pigs lay, bloated bags of fat, sensuously enjoying the shadows under the trees. There was no wind and they were unsuspicious; and practice had made Jack silent as the shadows. He stole away again and instructed his hidden hunters. Presently they all began to inch forward sweating in the silence and heat. Under the trees an ear flapped idly. A little apart from the rest, sunk in deep maternal bliss, lay the largest sow of the lot. She was black and pink; and the great bladder of her belly was fringed with a row of piglets that slept or burrowed and squeaked.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Christlike:
Often, Simon is compared to Jesus Christ or called a "Christ figure." But the book never explicitly says he is like Christ. How do readers understand him as similar to the Christian Savior? This scene, in chapter 8, creates a strong allusion using imagery and metaphor:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He went on among the creepers until he reached the great mat that was woven by the open space and crawled inside. Beyond the screen of leaves the sunlight pelted down and the butterflies danced in the middle their unending dance. He knelt down and the arrow of the sun fell on him. That other time the air had seemed to vibrate with heat; but now it threatened. Soon the sweat was running from his long coarse hair. He shifted restlessly but there was no avoiding the sun. Presently he was thirsty, and then very thirsty. He continued to sit.
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Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Authority:
In Chapter 9, during a feast that Jack uses to undermine Ralph's authority and sway boys to his tribe, Jack is described using metaphor, personification, and simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Power lay in the brown swell of his forearms: authority sat on his shoulder and chattered in his ear like an ape.
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Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—The Curtain:
The "curtain" in Ralph's mind is a metaphor for his increasing struggle to think as his time on the island lengthens. The first time it is mentioned is in Chapter 10, while he is trying to rally the boys who are still with him:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He looked from face to face. Then, at the moment of greatest passion and conviction, that curtain flapped in his head and he forgot what he had been driving at. He knelt there, his fist clenched, gazing solemnly from one to the other. Then the curtain whisked back.
Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—The Curtain:
The "curtain" in Ralph's mind is a metaphor for his increasing struggle to think as his time on the island lengthens. The first time it is mentioned is in Chapter 10, while he is trying to rally the boys who are still with him:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He looked from face to face. Then, at the moment of greatest passion and conviction, that curtain flapped in his head and he forgot what he had been driving at. He knelt there, his fist clenched, gazing solemnly from one to the other. Then the curtain whisked back.
Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Forest Fire:
During Chapter 2, after discovering Piggy's glasses can be used to spark a flame, the boys accidentally set a forest fire. The passage makes heavy use of figurative language:
Unlock with LitCharts A+One patch touched a tree trunk and scrambled up like a bright squirrel. The smoke increased, sifted, rolled outwards. The squirrel leapt on the wings of the wind and clung to another standing tree, eating downwards. Beneath the dark canopy of leaves and smoke the fire laid hold on the forest and began to gnaw. Acres of black and yellow smoke rolled steadily toward the sea. […] The flames, as though they were a kind of wild life, crept as a jaguar creeps on its belly toward a line of birch-like saplings that fledged an outcrop of the pink rock. They flapped at the first of the trees, and the branches grew a brief foliage of fire. The heart of flame leapt nimbly across the gap between the trees and then went swinging and flaring along the whole row of them.
Related Themes:
