Lord of the Flies (Kyle Negomir)

Title of Book: Lord of the Flies
Author: William Golding
# of Pages: 208
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
 Why This Book has Value:

Lord of the Flies is a great novel exploring the conflict between good and evil.  A group of English schoolboys are trapped on a deserted island after their plane crashes sometime during WWII.  An older boy named Ralph becomes chief, setting rules with guidance from his friend Piggy like keeping a signal fire alive for rescue and using the conch shell to signal the other boys.  Another boy named Jack believes the boys should just hunt instead, and starts to lose touch with civilization as the book progresses.  Ralph and Piggy start to lose control of the boys as they follow Jack and give in to their more beastly instincts, all while the boys live under the shadow of an imaginary creature created out of their own fear called "the beast".

Without a doubt this book contains some of the best use of symbolism in all of classic novels.  This is an allegory, meaning characters, settings, objects, and events stand for something larger than themselves.  There is a imaginary "beast" that says, "You knew, didn't you?  I'm part of you," (143) giving the feeling that not everything on the island is what it seems. Piggy's glasses represent science and civilization, the fire represents their hopes of being rescued (along with mirroring the decline of civilization), the conch shell represents civilization on the island, even the mythical beast is just a reincarnation of their fear of the island; almost everything in this entire book has meaning of some way or another.  Ralph says at one point, "We don't have a signal fire... we're beaten," (125) showing the connection between the fire and their hope of rescue.  Even the characters represent different ideas, as Jack is the evil and savage side of human nature while Ralph is the good and civilized, and their battles throughout the book represent the conflict between these two innate feelings, shown when Ralph says "You're breaking the rules!" to which Jack simply replies "Who cares?" (91).

Another compelling aspect of this book is the central theme that human beings are innately evil, with society and civilization just masking it.  The boys start to hunt while on the island, but they begin to no longer do it out of the need for food, but for a perverse satisfaction, shown when they say, "His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living creature, taken away its life like a long, satisfying drink," (70).  A boy named Simon stumbles into the camp one night, but the boys are so far descended into beastiality that they think he is the beast and ritualistically kill him.  They chant over and over, "Kill the beast!  Cut his throat!  Spill his blood!," (152) again showing that the boys are now killing out of pleasure, paying no heed to the fact that the supposed "beast" is crying out for help and was recently one of their friends.

This book is very unique in the fact that it was written during World War II, after the Nazis had killed millions of people and the US had dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan.  His profound pessimism is understandable, and some events and characters in the book mirror events of WWII.  The character of Jack and how he seized power can be comparable to Hitler's; promising his followers a better life and food.  Jack says "Me and my hunters, we're living along the beach by a flat rock.  We hunt and feast and have fun," (140).  Jack's followers,not Jack himself of course, executed  Simon in much of the same way that Hitler had his men murder the Jewish people, to a much greater extent of course.  In the chapter Beast From the Air, there is an allusion to a dogfight between planes, and the "beast" that the boys are so scared of turns out to be "a figure dropping swiftly beneath a parachute, a figure that hung with dangling limbs," (95).  There are many more references, from Ralph's dad being in the Navy to the Navy men coming in to rescue Ralph from Jack's evil group similar to the allies coming in to Germany.

This book plays upon some of the most universal human experiences there are, from fear to power to civilization and order.  Golding takes normal human experiences and places them in a place where they can truly show, on young boys with no supervision stranded on an island.  Fear shows through when Simon says "Maybe there is a beast... What I mean is, maybe it's only us," (89).  He recognizes that they are simply afraid of the unknown, which is without a doubt the most common type of fear.  There is a conflict of power between Jack and Ralph, but the power given to Ralph actually does good for him, shown when he says, "I'm chief.  I'll go.  Don't argue," (104).  He overcomes fear and the leader inside him volunteers togo look for the beast.  Even the impact of rules and order come into play.  When Ralph says "You're breaking the rules!," and Jack responds with "Who cares?," (91) the struggle of keeping order becomes obvious.  It is a bit more strenuous of a situation that leading a group project at school per say, but the universal ideas remain the same.

Lord of the Flies should be held as one of the best pieces of classic literature.  It is an enthralling novel that encompasses events of the time, universal themes and experiences, and utilizes writing techniques in ways that no other book has.  There is a reason a vast majority of high schools in America read this book, and it must be read by anyone who values a great novel.