The negative symbolic meaning of fire in LOTF

　　Fire is one of the most important symbols in William Golding’s masterpiece <Lord of the Flies>.Generally,fire is recognized as a symbol of humanity, life and civilization. It is absolutely true that fire really represented these elements in some cases, but the negative symbolic meaning of fire also exist everywhere.At this point, it is necessary for us to focus on the downside of the symbol of fire. 　
　　In ancient Greek mythology, Prometheus stole the fire and gave it to Primitive men .In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the rogue ghosts have to cross a twisted river which wrapped with fire to approach the heaven. In <Lord of the Flies>, fire mostly symbolized barbarism and the evil of human nature. This is clearly stated in the first chapter through Piggy and Ralph’s talk: 　 小荷作文网 www.zww.cn
　　“We was attacked!” 　
　　“He’ll be back all right.” 　
　　The fat boy shook his head. 　
　　“When we was coming down I looked through one of them windows. I saw the other part of the plane. There were flames coming out of it.”《Golding 8》。 　
　　At the beginning of the novel, readers were told that it was the nuclear war of the grown-ups which brought these kids here，and unfortunately, they met an air crash. This is the first time fire appears in the novel, showing its great power. It was the main reason why they are now 　
　　homeless and alone. After finding out there was no war on the island, this remote island suddenly became the Garden of Eden to these kids. 　
　　Fire, as a symbol of wildness, is quiet obvious in the following chapters. The kids were united to set a fire on the mountain in chapter 2, but unluckily, it was not that easy for those kids to control this fire. “He could hear them crashing in the undergrowth and on the left was the hot, bright thunder of the fire.” 《Golding 287》 Golding meticulously wrote how the fire, which was once treated like the only hope of being rescued, ruined the Garden of Eden to these children. The fire itself, which should be a 　
　　halidom, became a devil and destroyed everything at last. 　
　　Scorching the earth, fire also symbolized the evil of human nature. Ralph and Jack, as two of the most outstanding kids in this group, are both good leaders, however, their attitudes toward the fire is completely different. Ralph treated the fire like the most important thing on the island, on the contrary, Jack was lost in evil:“The best thing we can do is get ourselves rescued.”Jack had to think for a moment before he could remember what rescue was.“Rescue? Yes, of course! All the same, I’d like to catch a pig first—” He snatched up his spear and dashed it into the ground.The opaque, mad look came into his eyes again. Ralph looked at him critically through his tangle of fair hair. 　
　　“So long as your hunters remember the fire—” 　
　　“You and your fire!”《Golding 74》 　
　　When the rage was finally out of control in Jack’s heart, the fire of evil conquered the whole island, Jack wanted to burn Ralph to death, but only Ralph knew it was 　
　　insane and they were destroying their food resource. However, it was too late to stop the chaos: “Crying out. He swerved as a spear flew past and then was silent, running. All at once the lights flickering ahead of him merged together, the roar of the forest rose to thunder and a tall bush directly in his path burst into a great fan-shaped flame. He swung to the right, running desperately fast, with the heat beating on his left side.”《Golding 287》 What is ironic is, this fire dramatically saved them, and the naval officer came promptly and saved Ralph from being swallowed by the fire of evil. However, it was not ended, the officer saved 　
　　these kids from a small island, but these kids will soon be in a larger island——the continuing WWIII. This time, these little savages will be the prey, just like those powerless pigs. 　
　　Particularly，comparing to < Lord of the Flies>, another masterpiece <The mystery island>, written by famous French author Jules Gabriel Verne, has a much 　
　　warmer ending. The fire on the mystery island was well managed. Unlike the kids, grown-ups are much better at self-controlling, they were united,hardworking, and they finally went back to civilization. In < Lord of the Flies>, Ralph is the eldest one and had a better family background, it’s probably why he didn’t fell like Jack. 　
　　In conclusion, it is obvious that fire symbolized several negative symbolic meanings in <Lord of the Flies> and they strongly prove the transitions from morals to chaos. Golding used these plots to remind the world how important humanity, sanity and civilization is, especially when people are freed from rules and order. Although it is just a novel, it’s absolutely meaningful for all the reader to think how to control that lord of the flies in everyone’s heart.