Lord_of_the_Flies_and_the_Undermining_of_the_Adventure_Story_Genre

Some background information on this book. Published in 1954, written by William Golding, winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize for literature, Lord of the Flies is a moral allegory about children stranded on a tropical island after their plane had been shot during World War II; trying to survive on the island they create a mini society with their own rules and laws. Golding presents the reader with a more realistic though pessimistic view of mankind through the boy’s encounters and experiences on the island, from playing to arguing to extreme violence in the book. The book’s central emblem is the dead parachutist, mistaken by the boys for the Beast, Lord of the Flies. Though portrayed through the eyes of children, they characterize themselves as a classical adventurer, with exciting exploits, escapades, journeys, explorations and voyages that occur throughout the book. However throughout the story they try to restore order, which they fail miserably, and two factions are made, which then completely destroys what they had in the beginning. By undermining the view that children are innocent, and proposing that evil is an intrinsic characteristic in humanity, the traditional idealistic adventure genre is subverted. This is significant since the isolation forms a sort of civilization and community, a sort of microcosm to the real world. At the same time, the island lacks a society and the societal laws and rules allowing for the boys to run wild and show their true, ugly, inner selves. In the Beginning crash-landed into “the jungle” and Ralph is heading toward “the lagoon.” The shore of the lagoon is lined with palm trees, which sounds all pool cabana and pink-umbrella drinks. Don’t be fooled by this false sense of security – there’s a lot more to the island than relaxing waterside views. Ralph looks out over the lagoon towards a “coral reef” and beyond that, the “dark blue” of the “open sea.” Behind him is the “darkness of the forest proper.” So far, then, we have a dark scary forest (DANGER), a bright “shimmering” lagoon (EXCITEMENT), and a wide open sea (ISOLATION). The setting is already channeling the emotion of the boys. Introduce the good the bad the ugly…Clint Eastwood film…..related it to the book… In every adventure story there is always an antagonist and protagonist, and always other influential characters which supports either the antagonist or protagonist. The main protagonist in the book is Ralph, he is the oldest out of the boys and is elected the leader of the boys at the beginning of the novel, and Ralph is the primary representative of order, civilization, and productive leadership in the novel. “Ralph sat on a fallen trunk, his left side to the sun. On his right were most of the choir; on his left the larger boys who had not known each other before the evacuation; before him small children squatted in the grass.” Is a quote that represents the leadership of Ralph and the power he has to round up the population on the island, which creates a contrasting imagery to the modern day Disney’s Lion King, where Mufasa the lion is greeted by all the animals in the Pride Land in the beginning of the movie, just how Ralph is greeted in the beginning. While most of the other boys initially are concerned with playing, having fun, and avoiding work, Ralph sets about building huts and thinking of ways to maximize their chances of being rescued. "There’s another thing. We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire." For this reason, Ralph’s power and influence over the other boys are secure at the beginning of the novel. “There was a ship. Out there. You said you’d keep the fire going and you let it out” also identifies the leadership skills of him directing the people where people should go and do like a boss. However, as the group gradually succumbs to savage instincts over the course of the novel, Ralph’s position declines precipitously while Jack’s rises. Eventually, most of the boys except Piggy leave Ralph’s group for Jack’s, and Ralph is left alone to be hunted by Jack’s tribe. Ralph’s commitment to civilization and morality is strong, and his main wish is to be rescued and returned to the society of adults. In a sense, this strength gives Ralph a moral victory at the end of the novel, when he casts the Lord of the Flies to the ground and takes up the stake it is impaled on to defend himself against Jack’s hunters. This promotes the idea of Golding of adventure story genre, as the ultimate hero/protagonist with his idea of rescue. Now I’m going talk about the main antagonist, Jack like Ralph, a natural leader. Unlike Ralph, Jack appeals to more primal desires in the children and relies on his status as leader of the choirboys to justify his authority. ““Shut up,” said Ralph absently. He lifted the conch. “Seems to me we ought to have a chief to decide things.” “A chief! A chief!” “I ought to be chief,” said Jack with simple arrogance, “because I’m chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp.” This show’s Jack’s desire for power is no product of the island; this is a trait that he’s had from the start. Although his way of behaving is neither disruptive nor violent at the beginning of the book, he does, at that time, express an unquenchable desire to hunt and kill a pig and spends hours in solitude traversing the island. This insatiable desire is kindled after the first time Jack is presented with killing a pig and cannot "because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood". After this hesitation, for which he is most ashamed, Jack's blood lust grows more and more irrational, to the point where he abandons the simply in order to hunt. During Jack's metamorphosis, he also begins to paint his face and body with clay and earth, masking his humanity from the boars and inspiring terrible awe amongst the boys. During this time he starts to be known as simply "The Chief" amongst the other boys, like the Red Indians in the olden day Americas. Fatefully, Jack's transition into a demigod puts him on a collision course with Ralph's elected authority. As Jack leaves and takes the majority of the boys with him, lured by the promises of meat, play, and freedom, there has arisen a clear dividing line between the two. This then build to tensions between the main characters inter-tribal violence, torturing the twins until they submitted to his authority, and initiating the murders of Simon and Piggy. These show the clashes between the hero and the antagonist, causing the undermining of traditional adventure story genre, though more pessimistic view of mankind. The Ugly….. "They used to call me Piggy!'" Piggy is demonstrated as the helper and henchmen of Ralph. Piggy is the intellectual with poor eyesight, a weight problem, and asthma. He is the most physically vulnerable of all the boys, despite his greater intelligence. Piggy represents the rational world. By frequently quoting his aunt, he also provides the only female voice. Piggy's intellect benefits the group only through Ralph; he acts as Ralph's advisor “Piggy! Have you got any matches'”. He cannot be the leader, himself because he lacks leadership qualities and has no rapport with the other boys. Piggy also relies too heavily on the power of social convention. "We can use this to call the others. Have a meeting. They’ll come when they hear us—." He believes that holding the conch gives him the right to be heard. He believes that upholding social conventions produces results. He also audience surrogate…he desperately tries to make sense/keep order/cling onto his ideals despite the chaos. As the brainy representative of civilization, Piggy asserts that "Life . . . is scientific." Ever the pragmatist, Piggy complains, "What good're you doing talking like that'" when Ralph brings up the highly charged issue of Simon's death at their hands. Piggy tries to keep life scientific despite the incident, "searching for a formula" to explain the death. He asserts that the assault on Simon was justifiable because Simon asked for it by inexplicably crawling out of the forest into the ring. Piggy is so intent on preserving some remnant of civilization on the island that he assumes, improbably enough, that Jack's raiders have attacked Ralph's group so that they can get the conch, when of course they have come for fire. Even up to the moment of his death, Piggy's perspective does not shift in response to the reality of their situation. He can't think as others think or value what they value. Because his eminently intellectual approach to life is modeled on the attitudes and rules of the authoritative adult world, he thinks everyone should share his values and attitudes as a matter of course. Speaking of the deaths of Simon and the littlun with the birthmark, he asks "What's grownups goin' to think'" as if he is not so much mourning the boys' deaths as he is mourning the loss of values, ethics, discipline, and decorum that caused those deaths, this thean again slowly shows the cynical aspect of mankind. Now we have finished speaking about the protagonist (Ralph) and the antagonist (Jack) and the so called ugly. Throughout the book, in the end the total power over the boys is taken over by jack and Ralph turns to an outcast. The setting is also effected whent he most noteworthy symbols is the "beast"/Lord of the Flies. The beast and the Lord of the Flies are essentially the same thing: a imaginary representation of the evil inside the boys. The boys' belief in the beast becomes stronger as they become more uncivilized because their inner evil takes a stronger hold of them, clouding their perception of the truth. When Ralph hits the Lord of the Flies, he believes that it "smiles" at him. "Fiercely he hit out at the filthy thing in front of him that [...] came back, still grinning into his face". The smiling skull symbolizes Ralph's inner evil taunting him, trying to get him to succumb to it. The Lord of the Flies is the most important symbol because it represents the devil and evil, present in each of the children. All of the symbols and characterizations Golding uses throughout the novel show the revelation of evil from within the children and the portrayal of mankind’s real colors. He uses Lord of the Flies as the title of the novel because the Lord of the Flies symbolizes the innate evil within the children, which is the main idea of the novel. Golding shows that the children are not conditioned by society or another satanic force to act in an evil manner; the innate evil within themselves causes them to act in such a way. Therefore this is a subversion of the action adventure genre because in Lord of the flies it contains violence through the acts of the characters causing Golding to present the reader with a more realistic though pessimistic view of mankind.