By William Golding have you read it/watched it? what was you impression? Just wishing to discuss the novel...any feedback would be appreciated. I am going through it again to refresh my memory..but yes I think it is well worth a discussion.
Great Lemex I shall bring up some thoughts soon!!! Just a question I am sure you are aware to the Coral Island. Have you read that too? I have not yet ...
Is it possible to say the because this story is not real, is a work of fiction, that it is not quite realistic in terms of what the author is offering as prospective? Loss/despair/lack of human feelings/degradation of self and terror seems to be what boils down in this story.
I've read Lord of the Flies multiple times, and I love it every read! The movie wasn't too bad either... I don't have specifics at the moment 'cause I'm not at home to grab my copy, but I think that the author is realistic enough. Just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's any less believable. I have little brothers, and when I read this story, I could relate what the boys in the story were doing/their personalities to my little brothers. Who's to say that if my bros were in the same situation, they wouldn't end up doing the same thing? And it's not as if the boys were stranded on the island due to some mythical creature; it was a real life accident that left them there, something that can and does happen in the real world.
you mean in the book? I did not think it was. It is all fictional. I am not sure the whole thing is something that does happen in real life . Crushes do happen yes. As far as I know children never travel ontheir own in an aeorplane and if an aeroplane ever came down and it was a mix of children and adults the possiblity of just children surviving is very slim if not impossible. I think survivors would be a mix of all ages. There was a programme I wacthed a long time about this aeroplane that transported a team of footballers ( I think ) and had crashed in a moutain somewhere. The survivors ended up committing cannibalism because they had nothing to eat and they were not found till few days later. About three of them mangaed to stay alive and were able to tell the tale. Now when I think of the Lord of the Flies the children would have behaved in the same way because the first human instinct when in a situation such as this is to eat to survive. Eating and staying alive is what crosses one mind if landed on a island is what I am thinking.
I doubt the plane crash itself and only the young boys surviving was meant to be realistic. The author was trying to show how children, and people, turn into savages when cut off from the norms and rules of civilization, and how the lust for power can corrupt even the most reasonable of people. Personally though, I didn’t care that much for the book. Or more specifically, the writing, because the story itself has stuck with me ever since I read it six years ago. I think it was because I was too young and immature when I read it the first time, so I have been thinking about reading it again… when I’m finally done with everything I have to read for school. I thought the writing was excruciating and just plain boring really. I only kept on reading because I thought the story was interesting. Btw, I am going to assume that the title lord of the flies also refers to Beelzebub (literally meaning lord of flies if I have been taught correctly). How do you guys interpret that? The reason I ask is because I felt the book was more about human instinct taking over rather than them succumbing to the devil without the guidance of society, which is contradictory anyway since society is very similar and not godly in any way. And the boy Simon (the one who got killed first). I was taught when I had about this book in school that he was considered Jesus in a way, but I never saw that. To me it was more that the one who doesn’t revert to his more animalistic traits won’t make it in such wilderness, as one can arguably say if anyone had a chance of surviving for a long time on that island, it was Jack(?) and the wild kids. I did see Simon being killed as the end of the voice of reason though. Edit: Did anyone else not like the ending? I saw why it ended that way I guess, if I'm looking at the meaning of the novel. But from a plot perspective... it was anti-climactic.
That is a hefty that remains to be proven, I have yet to hear of real life story of such where children turned savages because they were separated from civilisation. The whole point of civilisation is to learn to become civilised and you have to start somewhere and from scratch which these youngs boys in the story were actually given. One would have thought with all the upbringing and the backgrounds these boys would have applied what they have learned from their parents to want to replicate that and build a safe small society until they get found and not the other way around. In any human situation and as we know from past histories there have been many civilisations before us that build empires and gained fame and control,not one mention a discivilised society. Human instinct is to create order and hieararchy which these boys should have done. Secondly the story was written by an adult. How can an adult speak out for many children and think for a minute this is what they would have done is a mystery to me. To be honest with you there is more to the book then meets the eye and I for one already think there is. I did look it up it appears to be so. I did question the tile and why FLIE . The word Lord is quite religious anyway. Plus there are seven characters in all which could refer to the seven something in religious terms. There are 13 subplots so that is another religious connotation maybe to do with the bible..I am not very familiar with all of it. here is what I found and yes it may well be right I am going back to it again...will report back.
I remember reading Lord of the Flies in school. I've also seen both movie versions. I kind of like it, but I have to say I completely reject Golding's central thesis: that Man is inherently evil, and without any kind of checks on his behavior, will revert to savagery and destruction. I don't believe this at all. I think if Golding was right, we wouldn't be here now to talk about him or his book. A long time ago, I actually thought of writing an anti-Lord-of-the-Flies, in which boys are shipwrecked, but behave in a civilized way and get themselves rescued. But that's not actually a really compelling idea for a story, so I never followed through. But it does indicate that I was pretty angry with Golding at one point.
The Stanford experiment, while horribly unethical by contemporary standards, gives some (deeply troubling) scientific support to that thesis.
The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. It is also 'acted out' by that mean that people were forced into it. When people are suggested to act a certain position and put in a cell/prison then they already know that the 'instinct of survival' is no longer an issue. If the same people suddenly became shipwrecked then it is a very different ball game. The instinct to survive should take and order should be restored because that is the only way to bring back normality and seek survival. Human instinct is greater then evil.
Evolutionary instinct is to form groups; it was inevitable that the boys would divide. It is also an evolutionary impulse to compete for resources, to establish dominance over the competition; it was inevitable that the groups would come into conflict, and based on the characters, that one group would tend towards physical dominance. The Stanford experiment's admittedly questionable outcome shows us that when one group has power over another, they will exploit that power. Based on that logic, I'd argue that Golding's conclusions are not only empirical, they're inevitable.
I read it, personally, I don't get all of the hype. It was an interesting story with an interesting message, but I found all of the characters to be unlikable. Even the main character I couldn't really connect with. That's just me.
I prefer the gone series... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_%28series%29 It is a a lot like lord of the flies...
There was some discussion on Golding using children as his characters. If I remember right, the main reason the author used young boys as the characters who survived the crash was that he wanted to avoid having to deal with the effects hormones have on a boy going through puberty. For similar reason he kept girls out of the story as well. This is presumably because with hormones and girls thrown in the mix, the novel would get... depraved. I forgot what was actually in the "interview" thing in the back of the book I had though.
