As an allegory, The Lord of the Flies, employs fire is a symbol of power, just as it represents power in the myth of Promethesus, who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. As a signal to the outside world of civilization, fire represents the power of rescue and return to civilization. read more
Significance of fire in Lord of the flies Symbols are objects, characters, figures or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. In the novel Lord of the flies by William Golding, different symbols are used to represent different things. read more
As Piggy tells Jack, "You got your small fire all right" (2.210). The fire thus becomes a symbol, paradoxically, of both hope of rescue and of destruction. Ironically, it is because of a fire that Jack lights at the end of the novel—in his attempt to hunt and kill Ralph—that the boys are rescued. read more