Hello Mr. Cook’s G Block English class. My name is William Golding, I wrote Lord of the Flies. I wrote this book after serving in the Royal Navy from 1940 to 1945. I had been a writer and teacher before the war had broken out and returned to this profession when the war ended. Anyway I’m writing this letter to explain the symbolism of the fire, and the importance of Sam and Eric in the book that I wrote. The fire symbolizes the kids on the islands degree of wanting to be saved and the decline of their civilized thought while on the island. Now you probably want examples to be included for this to make more sense. Well here they are. Sam and Eric represent willpower, when they want to be rescued the most, the fire is the strongest, when they no longer want to, the fire doesn’t exist.
At the beginning, for the most part, you would think, all the children on the island want to be rescued, despite their happiness of not having any authority around, deep in their minds they want to be rescued. They need guidance. This guidance comes from Ralph, a leader, an older boy who takes up the leadership in the form of an election, wanting to above all things be rescued. He brings up the idea of starting a fire on top of the mountain. Why? They still retain civilized thought. So the fire is started, and kept on for a few more chapters until its downfall. Also, about Sam and Eric, they represent human will. An example of this is when they join Jack’s tribe under all the pressure.
Later in the story, all productivity starts to cease, (Huts on the Beach). As Ralph explicitly states, at first, they all worked on the huts, then, only a few people worked on the huts, and then it was just he and Simon working on the huts. This also is the way the fire worked. Shortly after, Sam and Eric start not being able to maintain the fire all by themselves, because of the lack of willpower and the lack of man power.
By the end of the book, with Jack and his tribe and Ralph, Sam and Eric, and Piggy all that remain on Ralph's side. The fire dies out. The civilized thought has vanished as most of the children on the island are now savages. Sam and Eric as human will has given into the “better” life style that Jack’s Tribe had to offer them. All of the boys are now on the side that doesn’t seem to want to be rescued. The fires symbolism comes into place here, there is no longer a fire, the boys no longer want to be rescued, with the exception of Ralph. To conclude, Sam and Eric represent human willpower while the fire represents human civilization. The idea of civilisation dies out by the end of my story. Sam and Eric are finally persuaded to join (by means of violence) even though they don’t like what Jack and his crew want to do.