Many people believe that children are always pure and innocent. Most of the stories and books that I read before expressed children as a guileless and innocent creatures. However, I think we can’t conclude that children are always pure because every people; even children have their one will to become evil. In the book called "Lord of the Flies", the author showed how people can be as evil as they can be with changes in his characters; how they became evil when the civilizations and rules disappeared. While I was reading, I was impressed by some points but there were parts that I didn’t like as well.
Mostly, I liked the part where the author showed how humans can become so evil. I think the author is telling us through the book that we can also become like Jack when there are not any pressures that keep us far from sin. In this book, I was able to see how the author kept reminding me the lords of the flies are inside every boy. For example, there is a quotation made by Simon; “Maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us,” (Golding, 120). The mask that Jack and his followers wore also represents the lord of the flies. I believe that mask became one of the turning points of Jack when the civilization disappeared and savages appeared. I think the author wanted to show how evilness is easier to come out by symbolizing the mask with a conscience. They hid or disregarded their conscience and sinned by concealing their real form of themselves. It made them easier to let their sin out because they don’t have to be responsible for what they did when they are savages. I also liked how the author tried to show the readers clearly that everybody can become evil not regarded of their age. The author set character’s age very low. The book says the adults were also fighting because they were having a war. When the adults found the boys, they thought boys were playing the “war game” because they thought the boys were too young to commit such a crime. The book Two Years Vacation has contrasting points. (2) This book shows us boys similar as their age cooperates with each other and becomes one to go against evil. The story ends happily. No one loses their lives and they learn how to cooperate and work as a team through hardships. Even though the conclusion is happy, I wasn’t able to enjoy the story that much because the story was too common whereas “Lord of the Flies” handled boys from a new perspective, which was not stale.
I liked how the author gave each person or thing a meaning and criticized a society where intelligence and morals are completely ignored by the power of dictatorship. This reminded me of the cold war when communism was against democracy. It also reminded me of the book Animal Farm (5). The three characters of this book (Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer) each resemble Ralph, Jack, and Piggy. Snowball wants democracy but becomes an enemy of Napoleon because of their different thoughts about the windmill(Ralph), Napoleon drives out Snowball and acts dictatorship on everybody and creates his subordinates (Jack and his choir members), and Squealer is good at speaking logically but can’t grab the power and works under Squealer and Napoleon as an orator (Piggy). Even though Snowball had lots of great policies, we can see that his intelligence of making windmills was completely ignored by Napoleon. I think The Coral Island contrasts with this part because it represents England’s disciplined and ordered society by boys who overcome hardships and civilize the cannibals (3). Professor Hines says that every character in the book The Coral Island overcomes hardships with England’s toughness and Christian virtue. They express goodness as things like England, Christians, and pleasure and evilness as things like non-Christians, barbarians, and adults (6). I didn’t liked how The Coral Island concluded virtue and goodness as Christian boys who were taught in England. I felt like the author was criticizing the society that doesn’t fit in his value instead of the society that has real problems where the powerful leader ignores intelligence and morals.
One thing that I didn’t like about the story was that interesting event that can entertain the readers were little. It was too focused on the conflict between two boys fighting on fire and hunting. I think the author was able to still lift up his point with more fun events. Because there were not many events, I felt like every development of an event seemed so sudden. For example, in the part where every boy makes a circle seemed like an author wanted to kill Simon to show his message but didn’t know how to continue his story without any points that can back up the situation so he just made up suddenly. I like the book “Harry Potter” series (7). It contains the author’s message: There is nothing that can overcome pure love. At the same time, it also contains lots of interesting circumstances and events all related together to fulfill the author’s message.
I didn’t like how Author set the characters’ relationships. We can see from the beginning that Jack and Piggy are not close together and I was able to infer through the book that they will become enemies with each other. If the author truly wanted to show the human’s evilness using Jack and Piggy, I think he should have made Jack and Piggy close to each other at first but eventually ended up with Jack killing Piggy. For example, the book To Kill a Mocking Bird has characters named Tom and Mayella (4). Tom was faithful to her and their relationship was great. However, she ended up killing guiltless Tom by cooperating with his father’s false statement made in the courtroom. If William had created a good relationship between Jack and Piggy at first but ended up violently, Piggy’s death might have been more pitiful.
William Golding lived during WWII. I think his experience of the evilness of people influenced his literary work. When I was reading, it reminded me of WWII. In the book, I think there were three groups (like in WWII as well): the one who kept their morals without surrendering to the dictator, the one who followed the dictator without their own will but by force, and the one who followed the dictator by their own will. These boys showed more than just the adventure but far beyond society and human fundamental problems. For when somebody asks me whether I have enjoyed the book or not, even though there were some parts that I didn’t like, I would say yes.
Writer: Ellie Kim
(Picture is from the movie "Lord of the Flies")
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