Lord of The Flies

Lord of the Flies is a 1954 novel by Nobel Prize–winning British author William Golding.
The book focuses on a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island and their
disastrous attempt to govern themselves.
LORD OF THE FLIES

Written by: William Golding
Published in: 17 September 1954
Themes:
 The human impulse towards civilization and social organization
 The quest and fight for power
 The tension between group thinking and individuality
 Morality and Immorality
 Brutality and toxic masculinity, the constant need of proving yourself to others
Plot:
In the middle of world war ii, a plane full of british schoolboys crashes down a deserted
tropical island, killing all the adults on board and leaving the group of kids by
themselves. The story starts with our main characters, Ralph and Piggy, trying to find
the other boys in the island. Quickly the group finds the need to choose a leader, and
Ralph takes the leads. While trying to create smoke signals to attract the attention of
passing ships, they accidently start a fire in the forest, making one of the younger boys
of the group disappear, presumably dead.
At first the boy enjoy their lives without grown ups and spend their time playing games
and swimming, but things escalate as the group no longer trusts their leader. T
Chaos begins: these young kids are now forced to hunt animals, mostly wild pigs to
survive but none of them has the guts to actually kill someone.
The younger kids start having constant nightmares about a beast, which leads them to
think the island is haunted, which leads to an extensive search of this ‘monster’.
Jack and his followers erect an offering to the beast nearby: a pig's head, mounted on
a sharpened stick and soon swarming with scavenging flies. Simon, one of the boys
who has many health issues and because of that, is always fainting, conducts an
imaginary dialogue with the head, which he dubs the "Lord of the Flies". The head
mocks Simon's notion that the beast is a real entity, "something you could hunt and
kill", and reveals the truth: they, the boys, are the beast; it is inside them all. The Lord
of the Flies also warns Simon that he is in danger, because he represents the soul of
man, and predicts that the others will kill him. Simon climbs the mountain alone and
discovers that the "beast" is the dead parachutist. He rushes down to tell the other
boys, who are engaged in a ritual dance. The frenzied boys mistake Simon for the
beast, attack him, and beat him to death.
The rest of the story continues as the kids fight among themselves for survival and
leadership, and we slowly see them losing their minds, their posture, their morals,
going as far as murdering one another cold hearted.
“Ralph looked at him dumbly. For a moment he had a fleeting picture of
the strange glamour that had once invested the beaches. But the island
was scorched up like dead wood—Simon was dead—and Jack had.... The
tears began to flow and sobs shook him. He gave himself up to them now
for the first time on the island; great, shuddering spasms of grief that
seemed to wrench his whole body. His voice rose under the black smoke
before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion,
the other little boys began to shake and sob too. And in the middle of
them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the
end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air
of the true, wise friend called Piggy.
The officer, surrounded by these noises, was moved and a little
embarassed. He turned away to give them time to pull themselves
together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the
distance. “
The scene that most stuck with me was the last scene, when they are saved by a naval
officer, where everyone just freezes and stops fighting, and the officer asks if anyone is
dead. From nowhere, most of them started crying, as if they weren’t children at that
point and their humanity came back, and they’re looking back at all they’ve done with
regret.
Media:
There have been three film adaptations based on the book:
 Lord of the Flies (1963), directed by Peter Brook
 Alkitrang Dugo (1975), a Filipino film, directed by Lupita A. Concio
 Lord of the Flies (1990), directed by Harry Hook
A fourth adaptation, to feature an all-female cast, was announced by Warner Bros. in
August 2017, but was subsequently abandoned, because many people claimed it
wouldn’t work with the opposite gender.

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Lord of the Flies is a 1954 novel by Nobel Prize–winning British author William Golding.

LORD OF THE FLIES

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