My Character: Percival Wemys Madison (Ch. 5)
He's not a major character, but I'm choosing him because even small characters are important! Here I will list a few observations about him from the book and my thinking on them. This will help me outline a paper.
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What I Notice |
What I Think It Might Mean |
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He's a littlun. Ralph is reminded of the littliun of the "mulberry-colored birthmark" who vanished when the moutain burned. |
Both boys were scared of a beast. Nobody talks about the birthmark boy, and nobody wants to talk about Percy. They are both important but the boys don't want to think of how they're important. |
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"There had been no further numberings of the littluns." Ralph knows some are missing. |
Again, nobody wants to know that they're missing, so they purposelessly don't try to keep track of them. |
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Speaks his name, address, but can't remember phone numbers. Cries with littluns. |
Symbolism: He was trained by adults to do this in times of being lost or in danger, but this link to the past--to society and family--is lost. This is true for all of the littluns, because they all cry. |
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"Beast comes out of the sea." |
Percy reminds them that the beast can still exist. By saying this he turns their Piggy-scientific brains back into fear. |
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"Lying in the long grass, was living through circumstances in which the incantation of his address was powerless to help." |
Like above, his parents could never have expected that this would happen, that he would lose his ability to stop his fear. |
So now what?
From these ideas, I think Percy is a symbolic character. He represents the fear that no one wants to talk about. Since he is a littlun, he knows nothing about leadership, rules, hunting, survival, etc. like the other boys. All he has is fear. The older boys don't want to talk about this (or the littluns), but they can't help but notice that the fear is real--littluns are vanishing.
I also think that the fear is produced from losing society. And whatever is left (fear) isn't made up; it's real, because people are missing/dying. Worst of all, most people don't want to admit it. People are ignored, their names are not important, and what happens to them is not important.
I also think that since Ralph is the leader of this society, Golding is also saying that society does not care about individuals who are lost or afraid.
Thesis
- In Golding's Lord of the Flies, Percival Wemys Madison represents the fear no one wants to talk about, showing that civilization is in denial about its own fears.
Now I have to start outlining what the essay will look like....