Golding’s portrayal of the characters in “Lord of the Flies” is most successful because the portrayal of character is realistic and perfectly convincing. Golding had decided how a group of children would really behave if they find themselves on an uninhabited island, free from all the restrictions of home, school, and society. In ‘Lord of the Flies’ Golding has described two groups of the children; the ‘Littluns’ and the ‘Biguns’. In Littluns, Johnny, Henry, Phil and Percival etc are being discussed by Golding. In the novel these characters have no significance.

There is a charge against William Golding that there is no realism in these characters. He has described the ages of Littluns near about 6 to 7 years old. It is very difficult for such children to accommodate themselves in any uninhabited island without their parents and homes. Often, such littlun begin to raise hue and cry if they find themselves at any strange place. But in ‘Lord of the Flies’ no any children is raising yelling rather they feel pleasure, especially when they observed the fire near to them.

The other group of children is ‘Biguns’. In this group Ralph, Piggy, Simon and Roger as well as Jack Merridew are important characters. As well as Ralph, Piggy and Simon are concerned they are the symbol of good while Roger and Jack are the embodiment and incarnation of evil. The whole story of he novel is surrounding around these boys and there is a contest between evil and good.

Ralph is the symbol of good and he is fearless and blunt. He is being suggested by all others as a chief due to the conch.

“Him with the shell!
Ralph! Ralph!
Let him be chief with the trumpet-thing.”

As a chief Ralph addresses to others to make a smoke on the top of the mountain first. So that if any ship crosses from near the island they should come to know about their existence. He is also in favour of the hut. He motivates other children that they should build the huts for ‘Littluns’. But his primary desire is to make the fire on the mountain.


Piggy is a fat boy with very weak eyesight. He seems to be a comic figure due to his appearance but actually the is no comic event attached to him. He is the bone of contention in the novel and the main cause of contest between Jack and Ralph. He thinks that nobody will come for their assistance because nobody knows about us that we are here.


Simon is one of the most important characters of the novel. He is very humble, helpful and courageous boy. In the island he remains to utilize his potentialities and capabilities in order to help the needy boys. He often gives the fruit to the littluns. He made the fire near the Littluns so that they may rest in comfort and pleasure. He gives a piece of meat to Piggy when Jack refused to give the meat to Piggy. From the very beginning he told Ralph that there is no beast and snake-thing in the island. Beast lives into the heart of every person. So he says:


Simon is somewhat mystic in his approach. He used to visit the silent places of the forest in order to get solitude. He wants to observe the beauties of the nature. He died as a martyr.

Jack Merridew is the symbol of evil in this novel. He was very cunning in his approach. In the beginning he remained humble under the commandment of Ralph but with the passage of time he begins to violate all the rules and regulations of the island. He longs to capture the seat of the chief from Ralph. Once he expressed his bottled up emotions in the following way:


Jack is a cunning, brave but a capacious person. He is least concerned with the fire and the huts. He wants to remain busy in hunting. He supplies the meat to all the children. He is not afraid of any beast and snake-thing. So he says:


Roger is also an embodiment of evil. He has a deep-rooted hatred against Piggy. He assassinated him by pushing him from the rock.

William Golding’s art of characterization was superb. He has described that necessity is the mother of invention and the man is a social animal. Nobody can live without the cooperation of others, while on the contrary when they being to live with each other they begin to quarrel. Golding’s characters are the crystal clear proof of the above fact. C. Gillie opines that Golding’s novels show most conspicuous literary quality: great inventiveness in realistic fantasy and a disposition to use the novel form as fable.

To conclude, it can be said that Golding’s art of characterization is superb because while portraying the characters, he deals with the psyche of human beings. That’s evident of the fact that William Golding is a mighty master of characterization.