In Lord of the Flies William Golding builds up the character, Piggy, as a petty-bourgeois intellectual in terms of stereotypical appearance of an intellectual, words and behaviors indicating intellectual properties as well as harsh experiences, the tragic fate of intellectual.

Golding writes Piggy had a greasy winded-breaker wrapping up his fat and short body with thick spectacles. A picture of a medium-figured intellectual, with heavy nearsightedness seeming to have profound and immense knowledge, has come to mind. He was the symbol of intellectual as well as scientific spirit (Xu, 2000; Zhang, 2008; Wang, 2011). His thick spectacles were essentially the symbol of intelligence, science and civilization throughout the story (Rosenfield, 1961; Zhang, 2008). Rosenfield also analyzes in his essay that Piggy's pale and fat body meant he hardly did labor work and lacked exercise, partly because of his asthma (a kind of disease preventing him from moving fiercely) and partly because he was lazy so that he wouldn#8217;t like to do physical job, thus the other boys like Ralph and Jack looked down upon him and he had less influence in the group of children and became the fun of the majority, although he was among the four "big boys"(Ralph, Jack, Simon and Piggy). After living in the island for days, Piggy had his hair "in wisps over his head"(Golding 70), which makes his image of an intellectual more vivid in accordance to a saying that as so clever that long on brains.

Scholar Li Xin( 2000) has mentioned Piggy was good at finding problems and working out solutions. He was of the first boys, who came up the idea of setting up fire and the only person caring about little kids, and asked the question about the life they living. He is an intellectual that of kindness and thought. ”Life is scientific.” Piggy said. He believed in a material, scientific and rational world and denied the existence of beast. He is the safeguard of civilization and democracy.

However, his views and persistence made him become a target of teasing and torment. From the perspective of Li, Golding also entitles Piggy some shortcomings, like his physical strength. He couldn#8217;t fight back when Jack beat him. This shows the weakness of the intellectuals in the political struggle. They lack capability of action in spite of their conviction of democracy and rationality.

As there are some studies of Piggy on his symbolic meaning of the intellectual in detail, no study has linked his tragedy with the intellectual#8217;s fated tragedy. This essay tries to dig into the character and makes attempt to analyze the fate of the intellectual.