Golding's Lord Of The Flies: Piggy Character Analysis

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In Lord of the Flies, Piggy’s exclusion enables him to stay connected to his distant home and speaks to Golding’s belief that connection to home is central to one’s humanity.
Piggy remains connected to his distant home and values due to his ostracization. From the very beginning, he is rejected due to his appearance. Initially, Piggy is described as being “shorter than the fair boy and very fat...and then [he] looked up through thick spectacles” (7). This initial characterization of Piggy as fat, short, and bespeckled, in contrast to the tall, lean Ralph, is very telling. Golding crafts Piggy as unattractive and widely different than Ralph, in order to set him up immediately for scrutiny and isolation. However, this isolation is not wholly …show more content…
Even Ralph relies on Piggy to ground him several times. Through his intense appeal to the values of “grownups,” Piggy shows his strong connection to his home. Golding uses Piggy’s attachment to home and subsequent rationalism to show his belief that the concept of home is essential to a person’s humanity. When the boys first wreck on the island, Piggy’s main concern is the absence of adults, he beseeches Ralph, “Aren’t there any grownups at all” (8). Piggy’s priorities are clearly shown here; he values the stability and hierarchy of authority native to his home. He immediately seeks the presence of adults for guidance, and is in disbelief when no adult is to be found. He is the only boy who consistently seeks the approval of adults and references his home, though there are no adults on the distant island. Because he holds onto the idea of home and authority, adults, he remains rational. In this, Golding’s theme of a link to home being essential to a link to humanity manifests. Furthermore, Piggy upholds his reverence for adults and appeal to an absent authority throughout the story. For instance, as things devolve into chaos after the mention of the “beastie,” Piggy desperately attempts to spread his rationalism by asking the boys, “‘What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? What’s grownups going to think?’ (82). In doing so, he once again appeals to the morality of the adults from their
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