The Island Being

          So far in Lord of the Flies, every chapter has symbols reoccurring or emerging that have much allegorical meaning to what's going on, the characters, and the story itself. A few examples of symbols are the island, night and day, the colors, the pig, every character and all their traits and actions, fire, and more. The basis symbol that is a part of the whole story is the island. The island can represent many things, and one big symbolic connection is that it represents everything about the society of boys and that it reacts to every action from them, as the boys react to everything the island has to offer and how it naturally effects them. The island can represent hope, as it has given the boys a place to call their own and survive on, but the island can also represent savagery and death, because the boys will only rip themselves apart trying to survive there. Every opinion and trait of the boys has relation to the island, whether it brings destruction and death, like Jack, or serenity and life, like Simon, to the island. Metaphorically speaking, the island is a mirror, reflecting every action of the boys back at them through a literal moment or situation; a reaction of the island itself. When the boys let the fire they create go out of control on the island, this shows how they can create a literal, living hell, and how they can easily make hell of their island society. But on the island's level, the fire on the island was its reaction, responding from their actions with death from fire, and the deaths it produced, from nature to the littlun, could possibly be showing that the boys will bring their death upon themselves. When one of them does something that hurts the island or something on it, the island 'reflects' the action with a natural attack, which hurts itself, the island, but also one of the boys, teaching the lesson. In this way, the island is a being, mythological like the idea of 'Mother Earth', or Earth as a being; that nature is part of Earth's body, not just living on it. The island has many more symbolic aspects to the story, just like the infinite amount of other symbols, and these are some of them. Every chapter has new emerging or reoccurring symbols and allegorical meanings; so many, with so much depth.

           

Naviance

          Yesterday during 7th period, the counselors came in to talk to our class about finding a career path and finding the right college for us and our futures. Every year they come in to talk to us about this, and we have to do this 180 problem test through Naviance to see what kind of careers would be right for us and our interests. It's an extensive test, and for every problem, you answer if you agree, are unsure, or disagree if the interest they give you pertains to your interests. From this, they formulate stats with the questions you agree and disagree with so they can see what kind of career choices would fit your interests the most. Overall, it's a good thing to do every year, and it is nice to find out statistics about you for your future. Not only did we do the test to find the career choices that suit you, but we found out what colleges suit us, from your choice of location/s, and what you are planning to major in. From this, they find the college that's best for your future career path to study at. Every year, my results are always according to what I want to be and where I want to go for college. A career choice I got was to be an environmental engineer, and to go to University of Colorado for college, which literally are my first choices for career and college. I learned a little on how my goals have changed somewhat, and how my stats for career type have changed some too. Otherwise, even though it's a good experience every year, it gets repetitive and is always similar for me. Naviance is a good website for planning your schooling and future, and it's great the counselors come every year to make you do the things Naviance has to offer.

Jack and his Devilishness

          Jack Merridew is one of the main characters of chapter one of Lord of the Flies, and is important to the action in the story as well as the symbolism. At the end of the chapter,  while Jack, Ralph, and Simon are done exploring the island, they're going back to the beach where all the other kids are when a pig appears from the brush. Jack by instinct tries to kill it with his knife, but it escapes in time. "They were left looking at each other and the place of terror. Jack's face was white under the freckles. He noticed that he still held the knife aloft and brought his arm down, replacing the blade in the sheath" (Golding 30). From this incident and the reaction he has from losing the pig, it shows how Jack has darkness somewhere in his nature, and evidently, that he can be malicious. In this case, since they're now in a mode of survival on the island, Jack symbolizes the 'animal' or natural instincts that people have inside of them, or the trait that in society is seen as insanity. Jack's actions also possibly show how he will become just as, or even more, ferocious later on in the story when trying to survive either by killing animals, or even going against people. "He snatched his knife out of the sheath and slammed it into a tree trunk. Next time there would be no mercy" (Golding 30). When Jack has such an instinct to kill the pig, it also might be foreshadowing the possibility that Jack will also try to kill the character, Piggy. The pig and Piggy are close in names, so that might be a play off his name and what appears in the jungle for the sake of trying to tell something to the reader in an easy way. Also on a deeper level, the pig and Piggy are similar because they are both scared of something, Piggy of being stranded , and the pig, of Jack. Since pig and Piggy are similar and the pig was the prey in the situation with Jack, maybe that means Piggy will be the prey in a future situation with Jack. Jack is important to this chapter with his devilish characteristics and how much symbolism he shows to the story.