The "Lord of the Flies" can be viewed as a great representation of how "civilized" or "uncivilized" our world really is today. Various types of symbols are used throughout the entire movie to portray how that conception of our nation has come to be. Of the different types of symbolic aspects in the movie there are three very important icons that are addressed. The three icons, which will be discussed in the following essay, represent government, anarchy, and pure evil. It is very well known that all three facets coexist in human nature and the stronger force will determine how the society functions. After carefully analyzing these three symbolic icons you will see just how "civilized", or "uncivilized", the group of stranded children are when compared to other nations or groups.
Every nation has a form of government that attempts to keep some kind of order amongst its entire people. At the very beginning of the movie the problem the children faced was who would be the leader of the children. Jack believed that he should have the power to govern automatically, but all the children were in favor of Ralph. Ralph was then the one chosen to keep order amongst all the children. He is a natural leader and by achieving the role reluctantly by vote he symbolically represents the government, or more specifically democracy. Just like any other nation all the people trust their lives in the hands of the government just as the children trusted their lives in Ralph's hands. The children looked to Ralph for orders on what to do and how to survive. They looked to him for encouragement and assurance that they would soon be rescued.
Ralph generated a set of rules for everyone to follow. With these set of rules he believed that they would manage to survive on their own. He decided which children would build shelter and which children would gather food. Ralph gave the children hope that they would be rescued and to not give up.