Lord_of_the_Flies_Book_Review

Lord of the Flies book review Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, is an excellent book. It is a quick read and is difficult to put down. The few times I was forced to set the book down, I was left wondering, “What is going to happen next'” or “that really just happened'” This increased my interest to read for when I had the time. So, now you’re probably thinking, “Wow, I need to read this book!” Well you probable want to know what the books about first. Lord of the Flies is a book about a group of kids who are stranded on an island with no adults. These kids are young. They are not even old enough to go to high school, so they have had very little experience living on their own. Golding instantly captured my interest and kept it throughout the book. After the first chapter I thought, “What, only kids on the island' How can they survive'” To add to the suspense, one of the smaller boys reports seeing a beast. This causes the boys to be scared for their lives. It also cause me to be scared for their lives. I mean a beast' These kids don’t stand a chance against a beast. For the remainder of the book, the children are forced to learn survival skills. Some of these skills include hunting and making fire. Again, these are kids! They have to learn the skill of killing to continue their existence. Most children their age are learning skills in sports, how to play an instrument, or academically; not these kids. On top of their struggle to remain alive, the boys also try to remain civil. They do this by making rules and voting for a leader. Ralph is voted their main leader but Jack is a major leader too. The leaders differentiating views on how they should spend their time on the island creates a huge conflict. Through this conflict, The boys begin to lose their civility and for the majority of the book I was left wondering if they would regain their civility, or continue acting like savages. Golding’s main purpose in writing Lord of the Flies was to get across how he felt about human nature in an entertaining way. Golding gives the impression that he has not found any good in human nature. On the island, where there were very few rules, true human nature is shown. There is violence, stealing, even murder on the island. Does this faze the boys' Of course not. They are not living in a civilization with rules to punish them. The boys try and make the island seem like a civilization at first by building shelter, making fire, and voting on a leader. Jack agreeing with the newly elected leader, Ralph, says, “We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages” (Golding 42). This shows how the boys want to be orderly at the beginning. Their actions at the beginning can be compared to how they act at the end. Their ties to where they come from begin to fade, and we begin to see what human nature truly is in the eyes of Golding. I compared how the boys act to how our society acts to see how true human nature differs from how humans act in a civilization. Then, I thought about how I might act in a similar situation. Another example of a real life situation would be the tensions between Jack and Ralph. Their tensions are similar to that of political tensions since they are both leaders. Ralph and Jack have this tension between them because they both want power. This fight for power is one of the major themes in Lord of the Flies. Ralph and Jack want power for separate reasons. Ralph wants to keep the power that was given to him because he feels the boys need a leader that can keep them alive, civil, and possibly get rescued. Ralph could be seen as a bad guy but he’s not. Ralph resolves issues. Jack, on the other hand, is selfish and likes having power. He enjoys giving orders and having the others listen to him. Jack is the bad guy. I was extremely annoyed reading about Jack screw up Ralph’s plans. Ralph would have a good idea like always having a fire going, but then Jack would come in and say it’s not a big deal to have the fire. Then a ship would go by but there wouldn’t be any fire. Frustrating! When the boys begin to listen to Jack, they break the rules made by Ralph. At this point the boys are following different leaders whose rules differ, which causes commotion. A boy could be following one leader’s rules while breaking the other leader’s rules at the same time. With different leaders, the boys struggle to remain civil. Although the boy’s lack of civility is unfortunate for the boys, it makes for an exciting read. Ralph’s followers seem to be the only people on the island who try to remain civil. Jack and his followers are all about hunting and having fun. If they were to kill a person while screwing around, they would think it was no big deal because they had no rules to punish them. They begin acting more and more different from the society they came from. Golding describes it as, “The world, that understandable and lawful world was slipping away” (Golding 91). This shows how differently life on the island becomes compared to life in society. Ralph is the best at realizing how they are drifting away from life in society, but the others (Jack!) don’t seem to understand. That is why their fight to remain civil is such a struggle. Without the rules of society, the boys receive no punishment for their actions. Therefore, Golding implies there is nothing preventing the boys from acting how human nature intended, uncivilized. Overall, Lord of the Flies is an excellent book. There was not a long, boring intro to the story like many books have. The only part I did not like was the end. It seems to end too quickly, but this keeps it interesting the whole time. This is an exceptional book for just about anybody. Many kids would like it because the main characters are kids too. They can imagine what life would be like without adults at their age. Adults would like it because they could wonder “what if all people would act as these kids did if there were no rules'” There are many things like this in the book that can be compared to society. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for an exciting, fast paced read. Works Cited Golding, William. Lord of the flies. New York: The Putnam Publishing Group, 1954. Print.