Lord_of_the_Flies_-_Review_-_Plot_Summary_-_Characters_-_Symbolism_-_Author

REVIEW OF LORD OF THE FLIES PLOT SUMMARY: The allegorical novel “Lord of the Flies” by Sir William Golding is about a group of young british boys how strand on a lonely tropical island after their plane crashed because it got shot. They find everything on the island that is important for survival like fresh water, fruits and meat. Right after the crash Ralph meets a fat asthmatic spectacle wearing boy named Piggy. In their first conversation they recognize that there are no adults on the island and they are quite glad about it. Then Ralph finds a conch and blows into it like into a trumpet to call the other boys on the island for a first meeting. There Ralph, who is the oldest of them, gets elected to chief and passed some laws for example that they would always maintain a fire burning on the mountain to attract ships and to buy shelters. He also appoints Jack, the leader of a choir, to be the leader of a hunting team. In the course of the book the group splits into two camps. Ralph stands for the civilized part and Jack leads the Hunters who behave like a tribe of Bushmen. They split because of the fear of the boys of a mysterious fictitious beast. Ralph ignores and doesn’t really believe in it but Jack ensures to find and kill it if there was one. Most of the boys on the island join Jack’s tribe because of their fear and their longing for meat. Ralph, Jack and a few other boys go on top of the mountain and find a dead parachutist, who has landed there the night before. They mistake the dead body for the beast and take flight. A few days later Jack kills a sow, cuts off its head, fixes it on a stick and posts it in the jungle as a sacrifice to the beast. He calls the head “Lord of the Flies”. Prowling through the jungle Simon gets an epileptic seizure in front of the pig head and thinks it speaks to him. In succession Simon discovers the real identity of the beast and runs down the mountain to the others to tell them about his discovery. When he arrives there all the boys were playing a ritual hunting game and kill Simon in murderous frenzy. Short time later Jack and his Hunters split from Ralph, Piggy and the twins Sam ’n’ Eric and move to castle rock, an elemental stone fortress on the other side of the island. At night the Hunters attack them and steal Piggy’s glasses to be able to make fire. When they go to the Hunters to get the glasses back they get cornered and Piggy gets killed by a rolling boulder by Roger. The twins Sam ‘n’ Eric get captured and Ralph is able to abscond. The next day the Hunters are hunting Ralph and try to corner him by burning down half the jungle. When they finally find him Ralph runs to the beach right into a naval officer from a british gun boat that was attracted by the burning forest. The man asked them if they were playing war. Ralph said yes and all the boys started to cry. CHARACTER PORTRAITS: Jack: At first Jack is the leader of a choir back in civilization, wears a uniform and obeys strict rules. He also can’t kill a pig at the beginning. In the course of the novel he becomes leader of the Hunters. He loves it to have power and tries to convince all the boys on the island to obey him. They turn completely into savages until the end of the story and behave like a tribe. They even color their faces. Ralph loves it to hunt and has no problem with killing anymore equal if the victim is an animal or human. Ralph: Ralph is the oldest boy on the island and the opposite of Jack. He gets elected to chief in the first meeting he calls in with the conch he finds with Piggy. He symbolizes democracy on the island and his primary target is being rescued in contrast to Jack who doesn’t care as long he remains chief of the Hunters. He stays civilized until the end of the novel nevertheless he is also interested a bit in hunting and the hunting game where Roger plays the pig. Piggy: He symbolizes intelligence, science, law and order on the island. He is the consular of Ralph and he is the only one beside Ralph who doesn’t believe in the beast. He is quite fat, asthmatic and wears spectacles. He isn’t able to do any important work. Not only because of this he is an outsider right from the beginning. Finally he gets killed by Roger by a rolling boulder. Simon: He is very spiritual guy and suffers from epilepsy. He is often alone in the jungle because he doesn’t want others to see his seizures. Simon is the only one who knows about the real identity of the beast and gets killed in the hunting game before he can tell the others. Samneric: Sam and Eric are twins. They are called Samneric because they do everything together. They stay with Ralph the longest beside Piggy but betray Ralph in the end by joining Jack’s tribe. Roger: He is the most brutal and raw boy on the island. His propensity to violence increases highly until the rescue. First he only throws stones after the littleuns. Then he killed a pig and finally he murders Piggy with a boulder. SYMBOLS: The conch: The conch represents civilization, democracy, law and order because meetings are called in with it and only the one who holds the conch is allowed to speak. Piggy’s glasses: The glasses symbolize science, intelligence and technology because fire is sparked with it. Indeed they also stand for Piggy’s weakness and the weakness of democracy when they get broken. The fire: Fire represents technical progress, light in the dark and the only chance for being rescued but it also causes destruction and death when it gets out of control and killed the boy with the birthmark. The island: The island symbolizes the whole world that gets populated by the first humans. It can also be seen like the Garden Eden from bible. It offers the boys everything they need to survive and seems like paradise in the beginning and turns into hell until the end. The beast: At first the beast only seems to be a littleuns’ nightmare. Jack uses the fear from the beast to get the others to obey him by promising to kill it. In the book fear is used like in reality in a dictatorship for example. Later on the beast exposes to be a dead parachutist but only Simon knows that and gets killed before he is able to tell anybody. The author - William Golding: Sir William Golding was born in 1911 in Cornwall, England. He studied natural sciences but he had more interest in writing. He fought in World War II and was even present at the D-Day. His military service shaped him strongly and influenced his novel “Lord of the Flies” a lot. In 1983 he even received the Nobel Prize for Literature mostly for “Lord of the Flies” because his other works didn’t attract that much sensation. Own opinion: Personally I liked the novel because I think the idea of being stranded on a lonely island quite exciting. I also liked the spelling style of the author which is quite modern in my opinion.