Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies is a pretty popular book in high school curriculum. I always found it disturbing, perhaps for the fact that it involves children becoming completely savage, in place of adults.

Let's analyze the book (and the two film adaptations) here, shall we?

To start, who among you liked the book? Why? Alternately, who disliked it, and why?

Why don't we go from that?

One of my most despised books that I was ever forced to read. Perhaps partly because I hated the time of my life when it was required reading (grade 10, for those Canadian tropers), I have a strong dislike for this book.

edited 27th Oct '11 10:31:50 PM by MrShine

I think I would have liked it better if the teacher hadn't felt the need to explain all the sumbolism and themes and what not adnusium.

ad nauseam.

edited 27th Oct '11 9:06:12 PM by MrShine

I don't remember my teacher really incessantly dwelling on the symbolism and such, which I suppose might have had something to do with me actually liking the book. In fact, I liked it so much I actually reread it a couple of times in later years (it's been about 5 or 6 years since I picked it up, though).

Didn't read it as a school assignment, but I remember thinking it was a lot less gruesome than the marketing had made out. I mean, only about two people ever died on-stage. It disappointed me a bit in that respect, though it was well-written and atmospheric.

That said, it was over a decade ago, and I don't remember enough about it to discuss it in any great depth. I probably should re-read it...

It disappointed you because not enough children died? .__. Please tell me that you're just a budding teenager and trying to impress people by being dark and edgy.

But I digress.

I was never forced to read this book in school, so when I did it was in my own spare time. I enjoyed it, and was chilled by it, to put it in a nutshell. At one point, it didn't quite make sense to me that a small number of ordinary school boys would actually become savage to the level where they actually kill each other, but then I remembered the infamous Stanford prison experiment and it did.

I know a lot of people talk about all the symbolism and allegory that's apparently present in this book, but all I see is Beelzebub and a bunch of boys trapped on an island slowly growing bonkers, which in turn is an examination of what happens to the most innocent people when put in this kind of situation. So I do get something more out of the book that is more than the literal actions and objects, but it's not exactly an allegory.

edited 28th Oct '11 9:45:29 PM by annebeeche

Obligatory Paul Graham Quote:

Thanks for calling me a teenager. It makes my thirty-year crisis seem less imminent.

I was one when I read the book, though, and from the way people described it, I was expecting something with the body count of Battle Royale. (Not that Battle Royale had been written at the time, but you get my point.)

I dislike the way Golding's message is interpreted. Rather than "all humans have the potential for savagery", many people read "Humans Are Bastards". I hope this isn't the canon interpretation, because it's sheer arrogance for any human being to make an absolute comment on human nature. Perhaps unless that human being has been around for three distinct historical eras, and the only one who springs to mind is Alan Moore.

edited 29th Oct '11 2:56:27 AM by MadassAlex

I absolutely detested most of the descriptive paragraphs in Lord of the Flies. There's a point where symbolism goes too far. Otherwise, it was an interesting psychological examination, and I probably agree with the book's message.

I got freaked out with some of the passages. And I read it as an adult.

I've heard that this book was a deliberate counterargument to Coral Island, and that Bless The Beasts And Children was a deliberate counterargument to it. All things considered, I sympathize more with the viewpoint of Bless the Beasts and Children, but I suppose this book isn't entirely wrong either.

(While I'm on the subject, I also find it highly amusing to contrast this book's "civilization protects us from human evil, which is brought out by nature" message to the common and highly irritating "civilization is the direct cause of human evil, which is expunged by nature" message.)

I really liked the book, although Piggy's death, and Simon's really disturbed me. I didn't like how there wasn't any substances to the characters, but maybe that was the point. Essentially, the book is about these kids regressing into a primal savage state and killing each other - in that form there is only instinct.

I don't know if I agree with the point Golding was trying to make, however.

edited 3rd Dec '11 10:07:23 PM by zombielovescore

^ I found the loose framework of character background made the power struggle more intriguing: all of the relationships that formed on the island were of their own construction, including the initial division into boys with the band/choir and those who were not.

Regarding the use of description: from what I recall, the scenes depicting were never worded overzealously nor did they obstruct the plot progression. In fact, the variance between the longer and shorter narrative bits seemed to have worked well together to set the atmosphere. For example, the ominous passage describing Simon's interaction with the sow's head I felt was particularly impacting. The use of epithet just as well contributed subtextually to this mood of foreboding, such as the gravity inherent in the "aiming to miss" tag associated with Roger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl5r40hzij4

Any one wonder what the book would have been like if it had been a bunch of girls rather than boys?

An all-girl's high school that was sister to my all-boy's highschool apparently did that and as a musical.

Not sure how well it went, but I'd imagine pretty well considering the high standards my high school community has. Though, I did always think their productions were a bit lacking at times... But it also was written by the director so...?

It probably would have been the exact same. Contrary to what pop culture thinks, girls are not more cultured and less prone to violence than boys.

Inherently, they aren't. But, if you want to get into culture and social expectations that children are raised in and then when those two factors are suddenly removed, who knows what you might get.

I suppose it also would depend on the group. Lord of the Flies had just a generic group of school boys. But, if it were say a Decathalon Team or a Sports Team instead, the results would be different.

edited 12th Feb '18 1:51:22 AM by InkDagger

Had to read that in middle school, although I had some rudimentary immunisation (vaxxing FTW) from primary school in the form of The Island of Lost Children (island, not city), by children author Mira Lobe
No so long a story short (I might get a few details wrong, been a while), a few lucky kids get sent from blitzed-out Blighty to the USA, after ship gets sunk by U-Boot the kids find their way to a desert island where they establish an exemplary republic.

Because our teacher was from that generation, she thought it might seed some sense in us, in a Flies-Lord-icide sort of way.

Which explains all those mass shootings by women.

I didn't hate the book but I did find it slow. However, I appreciated a lot of the symbolism and the split between human and monster

Wouldn’t I just LOVE to see another adaptation of this book.

It's interesting to note that, shortly before Golding wrote his book, there was a case of a group of boys getting stranded for an extended period of a deserted island (they were Malaysian school boys who had stolen a boat for a joyride and gotten lost) and they did not, in fact, descend into brutality. One of them even broke his leg while they were there and the others set it for him and nursed him back to health.

Golding admitted at one point that he had a dim view of humanity, and that this probably colored his work.