Thursday, March 21, 2013

Author's Message

Lord of the Flies Vs. Our Society


Jack represented violence and man's carnal nature.
Piggy represented reason and rescue.
Ralph represented government and the old life in England.
Simon represented the spiritual.


        William Golding believed that deep down, everyone was evil. The evil and social injustices portrayed in this novel were based on Golding's personal experiences from World War II.  Many of the injustices portrayed in Lord of the Flies were based on society back the. After the war, he began teaching again and wrote Lord of the Flies. Golding took these boys and put them on this uninhibited island with no parents, rules or laws. The boys set up a system, by assigning jobs and maintaining a signal fire and thus creating their own little society. It was bound to fail because in the end, they could not control their natural impulses. While the group of boys in the novel were brought up in a civilized manner, after a few weeks on their own, the have descended to savagery. This is the main dystopian aspect of the story which is that no matter how much we try to achieve democracy and equality, there is no "perfect" society.
       
       The conch was the most important symbol that Golding used in the novel. Originally, whoever held the conch, they had the right to speak. In the novel, it represented their society as freedom. When Ralph and Piggy had first found the conch, it a beautiful shell. When blown, all the boys would respond to it. This was when their civilization was still intact. Then as is started to fall apart, the colour of the conch starts to fade. When Piggy tried to voice his opinions, he was ignored, regardless of the fact that he had the conch. In many societies, people can not voice their thoughts and express themselves. They are judged by what they say and their opinions. Women in many countries do not have a voice. They are controlled by the male figure in their life, unable to speak or act their mind. They don't have that right and Golding described that injustice with the conch. The fact that while it may seem like the boys had a perfect system, they began to corrupt it and it was no longer a democracy.

       In our world, Ralph and Jack would represent the different political parties and the "littluns" would be the scared, and confused general public. In times of crisis or fear, the general public do not know how to react, or how to deal with the major issues. During wars, natural disaster, or economic depression, the public are almost helpless and it is up the people in charge or government to do something. In the novel, the boys built their miniature society to mimic the larger society in which they came from. Despite the fact that their society is how they ended up on the island. Their society had ended up in nuclear warfare and that was the reason why they had to evacuate.

     Jack sought out power. From the beginning he wanted to be chief but was overruled by the other boys. Instead, he was made leader of the hunters. Nevertheless, that was not enough for him, he took every opportunity to sway the power that Ralph had over the boys over to him. Ralph was a natural leader and always tried to think in a positive manner while as the novel progressed, Jack only became more barbaric and cruel. In the end, Jack used fear and violence to gain control. In our society, dictators have used the same strategy to gain power over a group of people. Power and freedom, do not mix together. There was no way that the boys could have any democracy if Jack could control them. Ironically though, the signal fire that ended up saving Ralph was not the one he had tried so hard to maintain in order to maximize their survival chances. Instead, it was the fire that Jack had created in the middle of the Jungle. Here Golding implied that perhaps, that civilization and savageness are not so different from one another. In fact, they have more in common than one would think.

      While Golding wrote this book right after World War II when mass amounts of 'evil' was committed. many of the social injustices in Lord of the Flies are still present in our current societies. They are different nowadays, but they are still there. Hundreds of crimes are committed everyday and there are many corrupted government systems but while the issues them selves, will be resolved, new ones will always arise. Civilization will only disguise and mask our savage impulses, not remove them.

       The message the author is trying to deliver is very direct and effective. Every aspect of the story seems to have a hidden message and that is what makes this story so fascinating. The characters all have strong personalities that shadow and represent different parts of humanity. The message is still clear to the reader and it really gives us a different view on society. The part I found very effective was the fact that Golding used children to tell the story. This makes the impact of the message even stronger because children are born innocent. When they are young, they know of nothing except what the adult figures in their life tell them. They learn their ways from society. None of the boys were older than 13 but still they were capable of murder and cruelty towards each other. So to see the development of their behaviour through out the book was disturbing, but it helped me understand the author's message.

1 comment:

  1. Be more specific than "many of the social injustices in society back then are still present". You are outlining symbols, but you need to be clearer about Golding's message. You do not evaluate the effectiveness of the novel in delivering his message.There are several grammar errors to be corrected.

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