Although my book cover to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is rather simplistic, the cover’s illustration manages to shock the eye and provoke interest at first glance. The centerpiece of the cover is a sow’s head, fixated on a sharp stake. Flames engulf the sow’s head and the scattered limbs of burning branches. A crooked and shattered pair of spectacles decorate the top of the book cover. These spectacles are slightly overlapped by some text that indicates the book title as well as the author. I arranged these visual elements in this specific manner to convey the idea that the absence of a structured society ignites the savagery in humans, an important theme in The Lord of the Flies. One of the most significant incidents in Golding’s novel involved Simon’s conversation with the Lord of the Flies, the remains of a sow’s head that resided on a sharpened stick. The Lord of the Flies claimed that the beast was closer than the boys ever imagined, yet it could not be hunted and killed since it resided inside of their thoughts, their hearts, and their bodies. To capture the truth and profoundness of the statement made by the Lord of the Flies, I used red on the sow’s head to represent the boys’ barbaric nature and to make it visually captivating.
Upon closer inspection of the sow’s snout, the silhouettes of two human heads can be faintly identified. This image is embedded within the pig’s head to represent that everyone has the potential to become uncivilized, yet when we are integrated into a structured society, that darker part of us becomes deeply buried within our complex personalities. I made the human silhouettes black to represent the darkness of man’s heart, just as Golding had stated at the conclusion of his book. These two people in the pig’s snout could represent Jack and Ralph since their relationship with each other was detrimental. Freed from the probing eyes of authoritative figures, Jack and Ralph brought out the monstrous side in each other. Their feelings of jealousy, hatred, resentment, and fear spiraled out of control and turned them into murderous creatures that thrived off of instinct rather than intelligence and reason. I created the orange-yellow flames to attract the viewer’s attention. In this instance, fire is a metaphor for the brutality of humans, and the blackened remains of the forest is a symbol of social stability. Earlier in the book, the boys stood in awe as they came to realize the power of the wildfire that they had accidentally unleashed across the island. Just as the flames of the fire destroyed acres of forest, the uncontrollable savage capabilities of the boys swept through the fragmented social hierarchy and burned the heart of civilization on the island to ashes. Portrayed on my book cover, Piggy’s broken spectacles symbolize social order and intelligence.
The title and the author cover these glasses to depict that the boys were overcome by their instincts for survival, which made them blind to the atrocities that they had committed. In the story, Jack’s role in smashing the glasses foreshadowed his eventual role in creating social chaos, expelling common sense, and murdering Simon and Piggy, the basis of humanity on the island. Furthermore, I chose to format the title and author with a crooked, juvenile font to prompt the audience that the characters in The Lord of the Flies are just small boys. Since the problems that these boys face are so large and their circumstances force them to tackle such mature tasks, it is extremely easy to lose track of the boys’ ages throughout the story. This font also serves to remind the audience that anyone can be plagued by cruelty and lust for power, even innocent little children. In my interpretation of the Lord of the Flies book cover, I used numerous symbols which represent notable turning points in the story. Overall, the aspects of the book cover that I designed contribute to pinpoint one universal theme. The visual elements I included reveal that a deficiency in social order leave humans prone to explore and unleash their untamed savagery. Even though the inhabitants of the secluded island had previously been young, civilized British boys, they transformed into instinctive savages without the organized environment that grownups had previously provided for them. The fact that humans all have the potential to be savage under the right circumstances is highlighted repeatedly in the Lord of the Flies as well as my book cover.
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