An interesting and thought-provoking book (Lord of the Flies - William Golding)

Name: Orangeb

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Product:	Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Date:	05/11/01 (113 review reads)
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"Lord Of The Flies" was written by William Golding in 1954. It was his first and most famous book.
William Gerald Golding was born in Cornwall in 1911, he studied English Literature at Marlborough and Oxford University. From the beginning of his life he encountered war, he joined the British Navy in 1940 to partake in World War II. Throughout his life, Golding was awarded the Booker McConnel Prize, the greatest British Literature Prize and in 1983, the Nobel Prize for his contribution to Worldwide Literature. Golding died in 1993 in Wiltshire.

The basic plot of "Lord Of The Flies" is that a plane crashes on an island in World War II, all the adults on the plane are killed, leaving a group of schoolboys to fend for themselves. The book tells of the boys' behaviour whilst they are living on the island. To begin with, they all get on well and work together to survive, but as time passes, the boys are soon separated by their priorities and the way they behave towards one another. The reason their behaviour changes is due to the fact that without any adults to control them, the boys become very uncivilised. There is no-one to enforce laws or rules upon them, and they start to behave more and more savagely, getting away with whatever they want to.

The first thing they do, is nominate a chief. The boy who wins is Ralph. He is an extremely mature and independent character, he thinks logically and clearly:
"We've got to decide about being rescued". He is one of the main characters in the book, and one of the first to whom the readers are introduced. He is adventurous and courageous and respected by the other boys. He is the one who usually reassures everyone and deals calmly with situations.
There is a lot of symbolism in "Lord Of The Flies", I think Ralph is supposed to represent democracy. He was very fair in assemblies and listened to everybody, it was his idea that if anybody wante
d to speak, they had to be a holding the conch shell he had found. This shows that he wanted to give everybody a fair chance to speak and also to be listened to by everybody else. Ralph is the most human character in the book, I think he is the easiest to relate to as he goes through many typical emotions, whereas other characters seem a bit unbelievable as they are all representative of certain qualities which are accentuated in their manner and behaviour.

Piggy is a very unpopular character, a bit of an outcast. From the beginning he is picked on because of his weight or his knowledge. Although he could be a bit annoying, I often found myself feeling sorry for him.
Piggy himself represented intelligence, but his glasses feature a lot in the book as they are used to light the fire and they get broken later on. His glasses represent good sight of civilisation. The condition of the glasses are synonymous with the state of civilisation amongst the boys. As each lens becomes broken, the state of civilisation amongst the boys deteriorates.

Jack is a very arrogant character, this is shown right from the start:
"I ought to be chief because I'm chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp."
He was spiteful in the beginning, Piggy was often his target for taunts and bullying, but as the book continues, Jack is the character who becomes by far the most savage. It is he who has a sick love of hunting and eventually, he tries to kill Ralph. Jack's savagery encourages the other boys to give in to the temptation of letting their own savage sides take control. He plays a large part in the way the island ends up, with his own tribe of hunters. By the end of the book he is merciless. Obviously, Jack represents savagery and the way it manifested itself amongst the boys.

There were two other characters, Roger and Simon. These two were quite unbelievable, but very symbolic. Roger never shows any sign of caring or
compassion, he takes great delight in joining Jack's tribe and helping him torture people and think up plans of hunting things down. He represents pure evil.
Simon is the complete opposite, he puts everybody else first and sticks with Ralph. He represents good, when he is killed, it shows that there is barely any goodness left in the boys.

Golding's point was that every human being has a savage side, but it is suppressed in society by laws and rules. We do not behave in a savage way because of the consequences we will suffer, but on the island, there was no-one to punish the boys. The temptation to give into evil when you will not suffer for it is overwhelming, Golding strongly believed that every human has an evil side as nearly all his books demonstrated. He was suggesting that we take a look at what would happen without the restraints of society, as that is how we manage to remain civilised.

As you can see, the book is not to be taken at face value. If you consider what Golding is saying through symbolism, the point he makes about how society is held together is actually very worrying! The book is extremely thought-provoking and shows an interesting perspective on society and the nature of human beings. I would recommend it to anyone as you don't necessarily need to be able to understand the concept to enjoy the book.

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