The least I can say is that you will feel,to the exact degree,the crescendo of fear that takes place in one of the characters by the end of the story,and that will leave goosebumps on your arms! The Climax The climax of this book,for me,is one the most memorable and best scenes in literature. Also for that very important scene,Golding has selected the best words and the best sentence structures to ensure that this climax will have a lasting impact on his readers.
The Structure The book is divided in about a dozen of chapters,each of which starts slowly before gradually reaching its own climax. By the end of each chapter an incident of major importance to the novel will have occurred,and as a result,you will always want to follow the chain of events and that will lead you to the next chapter.
Thus the structure of these chapters is yet another reason why The Lord of the Flies never turns dull to the reader and is so hard to put down. The Allegories. Every event in the story is relevant to the allegorical message and some were so subtle that it was a challenge for me to decipher their meanings.
What is peculiar with The Lord of the Flies is that it can be interpreted in many ways. Indeed it can be seen as an allegory about war,human psychology or civilization. To this day people are still debating over what the story was meant to allegorize.
The Size I just want to point out that the book is not big at all. To give you an idea of its size,it is about the size of To Kill a Mockingbird and could even be smaller. So no matter what kind of reader you are,the size will not be an issue with The Lord of the Flies. Timeless The book was written in ,but its age is never felt in the story,not only because of the modern techniques used by William Golding,but also because of the absence of archaic literary elements.
It is timeless and as relevant today as it was years ago. The Language Sure,I said that in The Lord of the Flies ,English language was at its acme,but it might be a problem to those who are not much acquainted with English or who are not willing to take a dictionary to check out the definition of the words.
There are some very bloody and violent scenes in this book,but one in particular is horrible. This book is not for kids,and if you want to read a lighter and more jovial classic,skip The Lord of the Flies for the time being. Verdict: It is very unusual that I write so many points about one book,but The Lord of the Flies is a masterpiece for so many reasons.
It is a book upon which Golding has put much effort; it is a quick and very intense read; it is perfectly structured and beautifully narrated; its freshness is everlasting; it is unforgettable. But although I cannot find any flaw in it,I can understand some people not liking it for the gruesome details and the flowery English.
Hmm,I try to share my passion of books with others. It might be time to give it another try now methinks. Upon inspection of the island, the three determine that it has fruit and wild pigs for food. The boys also use Piggy's glasses to create a fire.
Although he is Ralph's only real confidant, Piggy is quickly made into an outcast by his fellow "biguns" older boys and becomes the butt of the other boys' jokes. Simon, in addition to supervising the project of constructing shelters, feels an instinctive need to protect the "littluns" younger boys. The semblance of order quickly deteriorates as the majority of the boys turn idle; they give little aid in building shelters, spend their time having fun and begin to develop paranoias about the island.
The central paranoia refers to a supposed monster they call the "beast", which they all slowly begin to believe exists on the island. Ralph insists that no such beast exists, but Jack, who has started a power struggle with Ralph, gains a level of control over the group by boldly promising to kill the creature.
At one point, Jack summons all of his hunters to hunt down a wild pig, drawing away those assigned to maintain the signal fire. A ship travels by the island, but without the boys' smoke signal to alert the ship's crew, the vessel continues without stopping. Ralph angrily confronts Jack about his failure to maintain the signal; in frustration Jack assaults Piggy, breaking one of the lenses of his glasses. The boys subsequently enjoy their first feast.
Angered by the failure of the boys to attract potential rescuers, Ralph considers relinquishing his position as leader, but is persuaded not to do so by Piggy, who both understands Ralph's importance and fears what will become of him should Jack take total control.
View all 6 comments. Jan 18, Adina rated it liked it Shelves: short , british , Edit: A friend send me this article of a real situation where a group of kids were left stranded on an island for 15 months. That quote sums up very well the idea of this modern classic. I ran away from this novel for years but it finally caught u Edit: A friend send me this article of a real situation where a group of kids were left stranded on an island for 15 months.
I ran away from this novel for years but it finally caught up with me or I tripped, who knows? It was a lot more interesting than I expected and it was worth my time but I would not say I loved it. During some sort of war, a plane crashes on an island and the only survivors are a bunch of kids. Forced to stay alive without the guidance and surveillance of adults some start to behave crazy and cruel. I guess the morale is that people are civilized because there are rules that are reinforced and if the society gets rid of them some of use will return to our animal state or worse.
While I admit that the story is thought-provoking and a classic, a pioneer of the subject, I cannot say I enjoyed reading it too much.
Not much happens for most of the book and when it does it feels rushed. Also, the author spent a lot more time describing the nature than the characters or their experience. I had problems distinguishing between the children and I did not manage to form a strong opinion either about the positive characters or the negative ones. Finally, I think it did not age well, it is hard to explain why I have this impression. I both listened to and read Lord of The Flies.
While listening I got lost in the descriptions read bored so I thought the written version was more suitable for this story. View all 19 comments.
Why do the obedient and angelic choir turn to savagery - does the fact they have an identified leader, who isn't the overall leader once they're on the island, contribute? One also wonders how the story might be different if it was a mixed sex group, or even an all girl group. Very different, certainly, and I suppose it would provide a distraction to what Golding was trying to say about human or just male?
It illustrates how petty bullying can be condoned and encouraged within groups exacerbated by rituals, chanting, body markings etc and how it can escalate to much worse. Nevertheless, one of the main victims, Piggy, is proud of his differences, demonstrates knowledge and intelligence and actually grows in confidence as his leader loses his.
Milgran, Zimbardo, Christianity In fact, Golding "experimented, while a teacher at a public school, with setting boys against one another in the manner of Lord of the Flies"! And then there are the conch and fire as symbols of order and god, respectively, in total contrast to the warpaint etc of the warriors.
Lots to think about, but more the stuff of nightmares than dreams. I think one problem Lord of the Flies has is that the period is tricky: too far from the present to seem "relevant" though I think it is , but not long enough ago to be properly historical. View all 81 comments. Jun 25, Lisa rated it it was amazing Shelves: books-to-read-before-you-die , young-adult , nobels. That's what went wrong. There is much to be said against this novel, and it has been said, eloquently, poignantly, many times.
Let me make a case for keeping it on the curriculum despite the dated language, the graphic violence, the author's personality There are two myths about adolescents, and this novel does away with them in a - admittedly - drastic way.
First of all, there is no general innocence in "We did everything adults would do. First of all, there is no general innocence in adolescents. They do what grown-ups do, but in a less mature and experienced way. That means they cheat, lie and steal, and use violence to achieve their goals, and they are vain and interested in dominating and manipulating others. But they are also caring, loving and resourceful, and willing to serve the community in which they participate.
The second myth regards the helplessness and general dependence of adolescents, which is also only true as long as they have grown-ups around. Leave adolescents alone, and they will organise themselves. The best example of what happens to a group of teenagers left alone is shown if a teacher in a civilised school in a civilised country leaves for just a couple of minutes.
If you have never experienced the amount of destructive power that is possible in that short time-span, you might think Golding exaggerates.
Unfortunately, I can see any group of students turning into the characters in The Lord Of The Flies if they are put in the situation. I even know who would be the leaders, who would fight, who would bully, who would play along, and who would go under. Add teenage girls to the mixture and hell breaks loose. Reading this novel with teenagers - if it is done with a big heart for their developmental stages and their hormonal glitches - gives them an opportunity to discuss a topic they already know everything about from their own lives but often keep hidden from naive, romantic grown-ups: the heart of an adolescent has dark corners, and it is important to shed light on the pain young people are able to cause each other if they are under the impression that they are not seen by the higher authority of the grown-up world.
Teenagers are grown-ups in training, and they make all the beginner mistakes without having the perspective to see the end of the tunnel. Reading offers perspective! View all 20 comments. I mean we have boys between the ages of 6 and 12 who are stranded on an island after they had a plane crash.
There is no adult who would force them to stay in line; there is no authority that would tell them what's right or wrong. They are left to their own devices and even though they were doing as good as you would expect schoolboys to do, they still were fairly decent at the beginning of the book. They were the only ones that tried to get order into the chaos but on an island without any rules only the strongest remain.
Why hold on to moral standards? Why listen to reason if you can have a kingdom of your own? You know it better than the others, right?! The strongest will always try to rule the weak. We can only decide if we fight it or let it in. We got to forget this. Of us. I want to go home. O god I want to go home. No, it were the monsters that had fallen from the sky, claiming the island as their own, doing as they pleased because they could do so without anyone to stop them.
The monsters on the island came from the outside and despite their claims to want to get off of the island they all knew that they actually wanted to stay. The descent into savageness was inexorable and the book ended on a heavy note. I can only speak for myself but the ending was brilliant.
Brilliant and shocking and so very, very realistic that it caused me to ache even more. Those stupid boys View all 17 comments. Aug 31, Fergus rated it it was amazing. Piggy and his upper-class schoolmates are marooned on a remote wild island. But left without adults, they quickly descend, like some of our leaders, into draconian martial violence - the powerful and strong versus the poor and weak shades of Animal Farm?
And I myself nearly became a Piggy. January, saw the personal event that changed that transition forever. And my moral values - though, praise God, not my Political ones - are so utterly and ironically shared with those of that McCarthyist year, It all started on a crisp, clear January morning in My colicky and irascible brother had come into the world ten months earlier - like me, he would have preferred to stay Close to my Mom forever, bless him.
But - I had also around the time of his birth found my parents in an embarrassingly intimate act. I had been barely three. And the day our car crashed on the Michigan Freeway when I was two was the origin That event had upset my psychological Apple Cart. With the appearance of those twin sources of trauma, I became moody and withdrawn. And fell into entropy. Corporal punishment was administered, more and more frequently. Yes, the Absurd split my life in two with those events - through no fault of.
Kids can be so weird. But by January my parents had seen enough of my inner ethical turmoil. They wanted to shore up my confidence. A four-year-old needs a foundation for his values in the absence of primary love. Yes, you guessed it: it was a substitute; an ideal false self. And that Brass Ring, which gave me a traumatically Impossible ideal to live up to in order to be a Number One Son in their eyes, was psychologically destructive And its inner violent duality was at the heart of my psychological collapse in BUT - its mature, adult worldview was always ALL that stood against me - and the moral entropy and outright violence of a Piggy, towards whose personality I had been drifting by the age of four.
So WHAT if it turned me into a slightly funny lifetime Aspie and hence victim of all the symptoms of bipolar disorder? I maintained my values intact.
View all 7 comments. Feb 25, Mk rated it did not like it Recommended to Mk by: required high school reading. I hated this book. First off, as I remember, it talks about humans failure to govern ourselves, or more broadly the failures of human nature. There are a few reasons why I think simply dropping a group of kids on a desert island does not in fact prove anything.
The first thing they do is appoint leaders. As someone who spends my time working in consensus based groups seeking to challenge hierarchical structures, I have a stro I hated this book.
As someone who spends my time working in consensus based groups seeking to challenge hierarchical structures, I have a strong belief that this is not how things need to be. It takes a bunch of unlearning and relearning to use these formats - simply being in a new space or being a child does not do this work.
The author and the children he writes about are a part of a specific culture, and it's incorrect to generalize these values to a broader concept of human nature. Again, socialization yes, even of a 6 year old plays a huge role in what behavior we see as appropriate.
While it's quite true that men or at least masculinity control government, it's ridiculous to use only boys to extrapolate what ways of governing ourselves are possible. I read this book in when I was a freshman in highschool, so maybe there's something I missed. Or maybe my memories are being colored by just how gross the pig's head descriptions were. If so, feel free to correct me. For now though, I have to say that this book is offensive and makes dangerous assumption.
View all 78 comments. Jul 31, Lyn rated it really liked it. Years after I read this masterpiece, it is still chilling. Golding spins a yarn that could have been told centuries ago, primal human nature unmoored from civilization does not take long to break away and devolve into a feral thing.
As good today, and as haunting, as it was when it was published in This should be on a list of books that must be read. A British airplane on fire crashes on a deserted isolated South Sea's island, in the middle of an atomic war set in the near future. All the grown-ups are killed and only children 12 and younger survive, how are they to cope basically an allegorical story of what is human nature , good or evil? Ralph is chosen leader, "Piggy" his intellectual sidekick he wears glasses, this beautiful green tropical coral isle with a blue lagoon magnificent palm trees, better yet coconut trees too and plent A British airplane on fire crashes on a deserted isolated South Sea's island, in the middle of an atomic war set in the near future.
Ralph is chosen leader, "Piggy" his intellectual sidekick he wears glasses, this beautiful green tropical coral isle with a blue lagoon magnificent palm trees, better yet coconut trees too and plenty of yellow bananas, other fruits are seen. Wild numerous pigs in the forest, plenty of fish in the ocean so no worries right Ralph has a rescue fire set which goes sadly out of control , and one of the boys is never seen again, Jack doesn't like playing second fiddle to Ralph.
He takes his group of choirboys followers and leaves, to form a new fierce warrior tribe on Castle Rock, painting their faces and becoming great hunters Since Piggy's eye glasses are the only way the kids can start a fire, Jack raids Ralph's shelter and steals it, the poor helpless boy can't function without them, blind as a bat I know it's a misnomer, but it sounds great.
Complicating the situation is the mysterious "Beast," on the mountain is it real? Or just a legend Earlier Simon sees the evil head of a large boar on a stick , in the middle of the forest Lord of the Flies. He has a haunting vision and flees towards the children, scaring them all. In the darkness they believe it's the beast and have to defend themselves, with whatever weapons they possess.. Later the two"tribes" struggle for supremacy on the island Will the wicked inherit the Earth?
And maybe the last outpost of civilization left is here This novel is a superb narrative of today's nations wars of conquest, anything is good as long as your side wins Jul 24, David rated it did not like it Recommends it for: cynical, pessimistic people, and students in English boarding schools. I just don't buy it. This book is famous for unmasking what brutes we are, just under the surface, but, well, for all the hype, it just isn't convincing.
In other words, if you're the one for romance and happy endings, look elsewhere. But if you like your books to have gripping and believable characters with a plot second to none, then Lord of the Flies is for you. I can promise you that you'll finish the book, left with a new and fresh outlook on the world around you and perhaps a thought as to what exactly Lord of the Flies is about.
Indeed its inner meaning is very dark, making the reader wonder how thin the line between good and evil really is. Want to tell the world about a book you've read? Join the site and send us your review! The Lord of the Flies by William Golding - review. Topics Children's books Children and teenagers Teen books children's user reviews. Reuse this content.
Civilization vs. Savagery, Order vs. Chaos, Law vs. Anarchy — all of these major themes can be inspected under the lens of what is happening in the news today, particularly in terms of governments and the amount of control they wield. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Castle Software, Inc. Phone: Email: info castlelearning.
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