Symbolism of Lord of the Flies, the Novel

The novel Lord of the Flies demonstrates the way life imitates art. It appears in the stories “Low Men in Yellow Coats,” “Hearts in Atlantis,” and “Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling.” Ted gives this novel to Bobby in the story “Low Men in Yellow Coats.” Bobby does not want to believe that people would act like the children in the novel act, but he begins to see examples of this behavior all around him. For instance, he sees it in the way the children on the playground treat each other. In “Hearts in Atlantis,” Carol gives this book to Pete because she believes it is about the Vietnam War even though it was written years earlier. The title page of the book that she inscribed for Pete is discovered by Bobby in one of the fingers of his baseball glove when it is mailed to him after Sully-John’s death.