Golding, William: Lord of the Flies

1., Novel William Golding "Lord of the Flies"

2., Author William Golding

He was born in 1911 in Cornwall, England.

He studied literature at Oxford;

later earning his money as a schoolmaster;

joined the Royal Navy in World War II, saw active duty through out the war

and ended as a lieutnant.

1954: Lord of the Flies, his first novel was published,

but did not become a bestseller until

1959 when published in paperback.

The novel is devided into twelve chapters.

A plane carrying a group of British schoolboys of between 6 and 12 years old is shot down in a war and crashes on an uninhabited tropical island.

One of the oldest, Ralph, the son of a Naval officer, is at first delighted at the freedom and absence of grown-ups. A short sighted, asthmatic fat boy, nicknamed Piggy, is more realistic and intelligent and urges him to find the others and organize something. Ralph finds a couch-shell and Piggy shows him how to blow it. One by one the boys appear. A group of boys in choirboys´uniforms marches up. Their leader is Jack. Ralph is elected chief, Jack is to be in charge of the choir, they are to be the hunters. The shell becomes a sign of one who has to speak something. At the beginning there is civilization, but already the second chapter shows the intention of Jack ( Fire on the mountain) - Ralph jells jack that his hunters must keep up the fire but Jack is only interested in trying to kill a pig and so they let it go out. - At that moment their starts. Ralph has from the mistakes they have made and he calls an assembly - they talk of a beast and they are beginning to believe in the existence of a beast. Jack sneers at Ralph´s rules and runs off with most of the others. Now Ralph and Piggy desperately wish that grown-ups were there.

They paint their faces, kill pigs, hunt e.q. Robert; and dancing round wildly they stab Simon to death, who wants to tell them, the truth of the beast. He has found a dead parachutist, whose parachute is movin in the wind.

In the night the hunters attack the sleeping Ralph and Piggy who feel terribly ashamed at their part in Simon´s death and Piggy´s glasses are taken away, they are necessary for making a fire.

But while arguing the twins are taken prisoner and Roger rolls a great rock down - Piggy falls and lies dead below. Now ralph is alone and they will hunt him to death, he starts running for his life; wounded he falls on the beach at the feet of a British naval officer ...

He is the main person and many of the events, reactions and descriptions are seen through his eyes. His early reactions are those of a boy determined to make the most of his unexpected freedom from adult supervision. He does not see people much as things and his first reception of Piggy is one of ridicule, though this is not unkindly meaned, it takes many experiences and conversations to make Ralph see Piggy as a person.

Ralph is natural chief, owing to his stillness, his and the possession of the couch. He also tells Piggy that his father is a commander in the navy and he seems to have inherited a sense of authority. He is responsible and can organize and is very balanced; his passionale sense of responsibility those who live for the moment and when he becomes chief he realizes at once the need for adult behaviour.

In my opinion the boy tries to act like an adult. He has compassion, courage and authority and a strong awareness of the values of the civilization the boys have left. He battles for what is good and right against what is wrong and evil. After Jack´s triumph lie is hunted like a pig. Ralph os the natural leader and when the naval officer arrives he starts his leadership and the dream is over. - He has seen his ideas and triumph .. and in his suffering he breaks down and cries.

Jack:

He is the natural antithesis to Ralph. he makes it clear that he has no time or sympathy for Simon and he has a personal antipathy to Piggy. He is used to power and he is very aggressive. He has an urge to bad. He is selfconfident and inconsiderate of others; also he is orresponsible (e.g. letting the fire go out). Frequently you find him on the edge of hysteriy. ("He is the centre of a bewildered cricle of boys.") He is always ridiculing Piggy and the first sign of a killer in him. In my view we see in Jack the abuse of power and this is showed when Jack instills into the little boys fear of the unknown. His philosophy of life can be summed in his own words "who´ll join my tribe and have fun?". Jack is a primitive chief. He loses everything he had in civilzation (even his conscious). Jack replaces his leadership of the coir by th leadership of a tribe, based on power and craving for blood which is to be satisfied by hunting and killing.

He ist the amusement for the other boys, he is easy to ridicule, and he is fat and talks too much. The boys regard him as an outsider, one who finds it difficult to be accepted by the other boys. Piggy is very unhappy by Ralph, who tells the others that his name is Piggy. He always stays with Ralph not only because Ralph accepts him more than the others do and because he recognizes the quality of Ralph´s leadership. Piggy is very dependent on his glasses and he often gets an asthmatic attack. It is Piggy who tells tem that they are behaving "like a pack of kids" and he tells them that there is no beast and suggests that the real fear in them is their fear of people.Piggy is blind and helpless without his glasses and he is struck down senselessly.

I wrote this bookreport because I like to read books and after reading I mostly think about the problems which are discussed in the book - and so I thought "why shouldn´t I write my ideas down ?".