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Katie Harrison

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Lord of the Flies

by William Golding

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Reading for the 2nd time

read in February 2016

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Katie Harrison said: " Lord of the Flies lends itself perfectly to study via Lit Circles or book clubs because of its fullness. It is rife with imagery, metaphor, and personification. It is pregnant with literary devices, allegory, and allusions. The novel, while appealing Lord of the Flies lends itself perfectly to study via Lit Circles or book clubs because of its fullness. It is rife with imagery, metaphor, and personification. It is pregnant with literary devices, allegory, and allusions. The novel, while appealing to young adults, teaches a supremely adult lesson: fear is the root of all human division.
The young boys in the novel are separated by their fear; some even become paranoid and violent because of it. Is this not what motivates vast military defense systems, conflict, and ware? "'If you're scared of someone you hate him but you can't stop thinking about him'", Piggy says to Ralph about Jack's defection. The children on the island fear various things. Some of them do not acknowledge their fears, but they remain just the same.
Jack turns his fear into defensiveness. He becomes a hunter so that he does not feel like the hunted. He has to hate, in order to survive. Ralph's fear is that they will not be rescued; they will die on the island. His fear turns into something that sets him apart as well- a sort of otherness, in which he can no longer participate or even thing. Most likely, towards the end of the book, Ralph is trying to escape inside his own mind. In other words, he is trying to leave the group.
"'Things are breaking up. I don't understand why. We began well; we were happy. And then-'", says Ralph to Piggy. Piggy finishes his thought with, "'Then people started getting frightened.'" This, I believe, is the crux of the novel and the important lesson Golding conveys through his loaded prose. Humans are innately fearful, and our fear leads us down dark paths of division and, sometimes, violence. We fear what we do not know. In crimes of hate, the perpetrator is often lashing out against an unknown. In Lord of the Flies, each child experiences fear and has to deal with it. Some of the children copy by crying and some of them cope by hiding. The island is neither good nor bad, but it does generate fear of the unknown; its mere presence is seemingly unknown. This is what makes the novel such a perfect microcosm to illustrate what Golding knew all along. Indeed, Golding must have experienced multiple reactions to fear in his experience as a wartime soldier.
Golding's use of children, instead of adults, makes the novel's truths supremely natural and human. The novel is at once disturbing and thrilling. Once it is over, however, we are left with questions we'd rather not ponder. ...more "

Feb 09, 2016 07:15AM · see review