Giordano Bruno Vs. Piggy Essay, Research Paper

Benjamin Barcelona

Piggy & Giordano Bruno

From the dawn of humanity, to the eras of medieval and renaissance, all the way our

current modern society, and even to the yet to be experiences distant future humanity has always

had problems with one natural event…change. In late 16th century, there was an Italian

philosopher by the name of Giordano Bruno who was trying to bring about change in his time?s

thinking and beliefs, but naturally, society conflicted what Bruno had to say and would eventually

even kill Bruno for his views. It still affects us in our current times as written in the classic work

?Lord of the Flies?. Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding in 1954, contains a character

named Piggy who tried to bring about change in boys he was stranded with on an island.

Unfortunately, no one would really listen to Piggy. Eventually, he would pay the ultimate price

with his life while trying to bring common sense into their secluded island world. Throughout our

human history we have often demonstrated three reasons why new ideas and change are often

halted. Firstly, our belief that who we are and what we know is superior to that which someone

else believes or says. Secondly, as a society, whether as a singular person or collective as a group,

we do whatever it takes for our own views and beliefs to be kept alive, and finally, because of all

this, the people who offer controversial concepts often suffer controversial consequences. Both

Piggy and Bruno are perfect examples of how we as a society have an innate inability to consider

new and different concepts opposing it?s own and will do anything to protect itself from these

ideas.

Piggy?s constant attempts to be heard and considered and the suppression of Giordano

Bruno?s unique thoughts both exemplify how we as a society try to suppress those which are

different than us, thus making ourselves feel superior. The conch shell made Piggy think he could

speak and be heard, but not everyone listened to him and even fewer considered his ideas, whereas

Bruno succumb to the same fate and was constantly suppressed for his outlandish ideas. In Bruno

and Piggy?s suppressions, its possible to deduce that society whether as a single person or group

has a tendency to place itself and what it knows above others, proving the idea or our innate

self-centricity.

? ? I?m chief,? said Ralph tremulously. ?And what about the fire? And

I?ve got the conch–?

? ?You haven?t got it with you,? said Jack, sneering. ?You left it

behind. See, clever? And the conch doesn?t count at this end of the island–?

All at once the thunder struck. Instead of the dull boom there was a

point of impact in the explosion.

? ?The conch counts here too, ? said Ralph, ?and all over the island.?1

This argument between Ralph and Jack displays how Ralph believes the conch shell gives him the

power that whatever he says is right. But on the other side Jack doesn?t listen to Ralph because he

is the leader of his own tribe thus believing what he says is always right. Although this is an

excerpt from a Lord of the Flies, a novel, Golding displayed reality through story and it displays

how we as a society often force our opinions and ideas upon others if we have some sort of

authority over them. This controversy does not directly involve Piggy but it relates to him in that

he used the conch often so that his views and ideas could be heard. Feeling the conch gave him the

right to speak, Piggy usually had ideas which would benefit all the boys and not just himself, but

after the separation of boys, no one would really listen to him. Many of the boys thought what

they were doing was the best for them and Piggy was trying to impose what he thought would help

improve the boys lives on the island. Although Piggy was being heard for his ideas he was not

always considered with Ralph and Jack did as they saw fit.

?It was not long before the monks of Saint Dominico began to learn

something about the extraordinary enthusiasm of their young colleague. He was

frank, outspoken, and lacking in reticence. It was not long before he got himself

into trouble. It was evident that this boy could not be made to fit into Dominican

grooves. One of the first things that a student has to learn is to give the teacher

the answers that the teacher wants. The average teacher is the preserver of the

ancient landmarks. The students are his audience. They applaud but they must

not innovate. They must learn to labor and to wait. It was not Bruno’s behavior

but his opinions that got him into trouble.?2

This dictation of Bruno?s early school life portrays how even throughout his youth, Bruno was

quite controversial and confrontational by nature. Although he was proposing new ideas that were

different than what was pre-conceived, Bruno?s teachers believed in what they already thought they

and what the rest of the word thought was above and superior to what he was saying. Bruno?s

teachers were unwilling to even listen to Bruno and his ideas, thus displaying how society relies on

what it knows or thinks it knows, without even considering other options at the time. Once again,

another example of how many people in authority do not listen to their underlings, thinking of

superiority to inferiority.

Giordano Bruno in his work ?De La Causa, Principio, et Uno?, (On Cause, Principle, and

Unity), displays how we humans now know that the Earth is not the centre of the universe, but

whenever we look upon the universe we place ourselves as the central axis as its observer.

“Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the universe, and the observer

is always at the center of things,?3 this quote from this work is how Bruno backed Copernicus?s

heliocentric model of the universe where the sun is the centre. Bruno takes it one step farther to

make a statement about how we as humans place ourselves as the centre of whatever we do,

regardless if we know we are not or we do not. Although in our modern society we know we are

not the centre of the universe, often we still place ourselves above others, and Bruno?s view of the

observer being in the centre of all things will probably hold true for a very long time.

Within Piggy?s use of the conch shell and Jack?s/Ralph?s non-consideration of some of his

ideas, to Bruno?s teacher?s stubbornness of even listening to Bruno?s thoughts, it is easy to

recognize that who we are and what we think as individuals or a group will always come before the

views and thoughts of others, no matter how valid they are.

Self-preservation is when one will do anything to keep itself alive. Whether it be

protecting his life or his ideals, we will do just about anything to maintain them. Piggy and Bruno,

through their trying to change others, met face to face with these innate defense barriers within

ourselves. For Piggy, he faced this in his opposition of what Jack?s tribe was doing on the other

side of the island. So to keep doing what they wanted to do without distraction from Piggy?s

comments, eventually, killed Piggy with the crashing boulder. ?High overhead, Roger, with a sense

of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever,?4 this short quote happens right before

Piggy is killed by the falling boulder pushed by Roger. This relates to the main point in that Roger

is probably doing what he thinks Jack would want him to do. Piggy always tried to speak of how

things should be done and what is needed to do, and that often contradicted what Jack and his tribe

thought. By Jack?s tribe killing Piggy, they keep alive their own views on that hunting and having

fun is their main priority on the island, not being civil and reasonable.

As for Bruno, he was imprisoned for years to try to get him to retract his ideas so that the

Church would not be threatened by them. The Church tried for years and when Bruno eventually

did recant his words, they still burned him at the stake of the Church inquisition. In both Bruno

and Piggy, you see how either a single person (Roger), or a collective group (the Church) will do

anything for self-preservation of themselves and their ideas.

?Wherever he went, Bruno’s passionate utterings led to opposition.

During his English period he outraged the Oxford faculty in a lecture at the

university; upon his return to France, in 1585, he got into a violent quarrel

about a scientific instrument. He fled Paris for Germany in 1586, where he lived

in Wittenberg, Prague, Helmstedt, and Frankfurt. As he had in France and

England, he lived off the munificence of patrons, whom after some time he

invariably outraged.?5

This recap of a period in Bruno?s life is about how he often went to a place, caused turmoil by

proposing and spreading his views, then flees for fear of his own safety from the controversy he

causes. Bruno may have intentionally caused controversy and turmoil but people would not even

consider his different concepts. His opposing ideas were always the subject to arguments and

people trying to shoot them down because what they believed was what they thought was right and

would not allow someone else to change that. The main thing is that they would not give Bruno?s

ideals a chance at all, and this portrays how we too often not listen to other because of differences

of opinions.

?Before the Venetian Inquisition Bruno knelt, recanted fully, and denied

all his theological and cosmological beliefs. He saw nothing wrong with this

dissimulation, nor was there anything wrong with it: why allow yourself to be

murdered by the vicious machinations of an insane system, if by a simple gesture

you could escape and live to fight another day??6

Through this quote of Bruno?s actions, Bruno eventually repented for his heretical ideas. How

even when Bruno dropped his heretical views and ideas, (although it was just for his own survival),

the people still ended up burning Bruno at the stake shows how even though they got what they

wanted, which was Bruno to stop his views, they feared his ideas had already been spread and

without killing him that his opposing opinions would get even stronger.

In both Piggy and Bruno?s untimely deaths, society shows how we don?t like change from

what we know. If what another says offends us or our beliefs in anyway we tend to try to protect

ourselves by blocking ourselves from this person and their thoughts, to even in some extreme cases,

such as Bruno and Piggy, murder those who are conflicting to us.

Both Bruno and Piggy were controversial in their own rights, and they both paid with their

lives for their ideas and opinions. In their deaths as well as many deaths of controversial figures

throughout history, you often see they suffer controversial consequences such as death or

imprisonment. In the controversial consequences, we find how society will often punish those who

try to change general ideas although there are better ways of handling these situations.

?The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch

exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Piggy, saying

nothing, with no time even for a grunt, traveled through the air sideways from

the rock, turning over as he went.?7

In this excerpt from the Lord of the Flies, Piggy gets crushed from the boulder pushed by Roger

while trying to restore order between Jack and Ralph?s fighting. This is a cruel fate for Piggy who

deserved better than to die from a crashing boulder. Piggy was the only one who brought scientific

reason and logic to the boys thinking, but they never listened to him or always wanted to joke about

him. He always expressed good, solid ideas and thoughts but often was shot down because some

of the boys not liking him. In their killing of Piggy, Jack?s tribe shows how a person who was

problematic to their society is often handled. In society we believe in rooting out the source and

Piggy was the source so therefore he was killed.

“His unbending integrity and lack of compromise resulted in him being

hounded throughout Europe by the Church, and he lived a life on the road as

wandering scholar, writer, and teacher. Eventually they caught up with him,

placed him into prison for eight years, and ordered him to recant the heretical

passages of his works. He would not cooperate or change his views. They

tortured him, still he would not recant. Finally, on February 17th, 1600, he was

taken out into the Campo dei Fiori in Rome, and burned alive at the stake as an

unrepentant heretic.”8

?He suffered a cruel death and achieved a unique martyr’s fame. He has

become the Church’s most difficult alibi. She can explain away the case of

Galileo with suave condescension. Bruno sticks in her throat.

He is one martyr whose name should lead all the rest. He was not a

mere religious sectarian who was caught up in the psychology of some mob

hysteria. He was a sensitive, imaginative poet, fired with the enthusiasm of a

larger vision of a larger universe … and he fell into the error of heretical belief.

For this poets vision he was kept in a dark dungeon for eight years and then

taken out to a blazing market place and roasted to death by fire.?9

In these two quotes, we learn of the fate of Giordano Bruno. The first quote demonstrates how

Giordano Bruno suffered at the hands of the Church and dies at the hands of the Inquisition for not

relenting from his own thoughts which were controversial for his time. In the second, is an opinion

of John Kessler, who wrote a biography on Giordano Bruno. His view that Bruno, although

described as a ?heretic? had solid ideas and points but was just disregarded because he was

attacking the foundations of establishments like the Church and the notion of a celestial being or

God. Had Bruno been more political like Galileo was after Bruno?s death, he might not have been

though of as a threat to the Church but that is not what happened and he was instead martyred for

his beliefs varying from what was generally thought and accepted.

Controversy surrounds those who propose new ideas and views, as well as danger. Bruno

and Piggy?s deaths display this example quite well in their confrontational natures, as well as

society?s quick final actions. From boys to society, we act the same and will solve problems as

fast as we can, often needing the source to be stopped, and in this case the sources were Bruno and

Piggy.

In our quest to find comfort and stability in life, we often find things that try to change our

lifestyles are things we don?t adjust well to. During Bruno?s life, he was often forced into fleeing

for safety of his own life, and Piggy was often scolded by the other boys. Eventually, the two were

persecuted and killed for what they said and believed. In Bruno and Piggy we find martyrs in their

own right who were just trying to change ideas and thoughts, regardless of whether they were right

or wrong, they have the right to do so. Both Piggy and Bruno died for similar reasons, but our

society?s innate inability to consider new and different concepts opposing it?s own, caused

extreme and controversial consequences where both were killed. Unless we can change

our acceptance of others and their ideas and thoughts, our progression as an entire human

race will falter and may even stop if we continue things such as racism, discrimination, and

abuse of power.

of Works Cited /Bibliography of Works Consulted

Bruno, Giordano. De La Causa, Principio, et Uno

Golding, William. Lord Of The Flies, 1954

Harrison, Paul. Giordano Bruno – pantheist martyr.

Kessler, John. Giordano Bruno: The Forgotten Philosopher

Van Helden, Albert. Giordano Bruno: (1548-1600), 1995.

No author (http://cadre.sjsu.edu/switch/sound/articles/wendt/folder6/ng6212.htm)

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), 1996.

*Note: All Works Cited were also all works consulted.