"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."

Well, some of the more obvious symbols in Lord of the Flies are Piggy representing intelligence, logic, and scientific thought, the conch representing order and concrete society, and the island representing the human mind. It is this last symbol that I am going to focus on, as it encompasses many of the other symbols. Each character represents an emotion or characteristic, and each object represents some value. As human thought and consciousness (the airplane and the boys) crashes into the mind (the island) after some horrific accident (the shooting down of the plane), chaos starts to ensue. At first, intelligence (Piggy) is prevalent and keenly felt, and strength and bravery (Ralph) takes over, while kindness and goodness (Simon) is out and about, acting often and being a large part of the whole society of mind. But savagery and bloodlust (Jack) and evil (Roger) slowly wear away at the rest of the mind. Almost at the very beginning, innocence (the littlun with the mulberry birthmark) is lost to some early, un-thought- out act (the forest fire). Then, as bloodlust gains more and more power, it envelops some group of unsure-ness (the hunters) to go and get the first drop of blood, of lust (the sow). Then savagery completely loses itself, and throws power away from strength and intelligence and order, and the masses, the actions (the whole of the boys) follow after savagery, and kindness is held down, blamed, while savagery and evil gain power.

"I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious."

So next week is the opening of A Christmas Carol, the show we are putting on for Monarch High School’s fall play. We are doing it in steampunk style, which is basically an over-dramatization of an alternate future in which steam-powered machinery took over, and basically finer internal software never developed and everything is giant factory, brass and bronze gears and pipes, all over a Victorian England setting. I am in tech as well as an actor. I play Topper, Fred (Scrooge’s nephew)’s friend that accompanies him to his Christmas dinner party.  As for tech, I am in set tech, and we have been building the set diligently for the past couple of weeks. Doc (Gwendolyn Lukas-Doctor), our theater director, and Kelsey Kaisershot, the assistant director have endeavored to put on the show in one month. It’s a pretty tall order, and for the past week and a half, select few members of set tech (including myself) have been staying until at least 7:30 each night working. We are so close and yet so far from finishing. We will see.

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."

Piggy is a very interesting character in Lord of the Flies. He is really the representation and personification of intelligence, logic, scientific thinking, and intellect in their group, but he is ignored. He is overweight, has asthma and glasses, and can’t swim. “He was shorter than the fair boy and very fat… [And wore] thick spectacles” (Golding 5) As such he is basically ignored or dismissed as insignificant, and in Jack’s case he is hated. But, he is the voice of reason and organization “what intelligence had been shown was traceable to Piggy,” (Golding 21) and is the one to suggest the keeping of a list of names, of people in the civilization, and is the one that goes around, attempting to learn the names of everyone and organize them into something recognizable.