Lord of the Flies criticism
Title: Boys ' Club--No Girls Allowed: Absence as Presence in William Golding 's Lord of the Flies
Author(s): Paula Alida Roy [(essay date 2003) In the following essay, Roy discusses how the lack of female influences in Lord of the Flies impacts the lives of Golding 's schoolboys not only on the island, but also at home.]
William Golding 's Lord of the Flies is peopled entirely by boys and, briefly, adult men. The absence of girls and women, however, does not prohibit interrogating this text for evidence of sexism/gender bias. We might begin by questioning the implicit assumptions about male violence and competitiveness that permeate Golding 's Hobbesian vision. Today 's sociobiologists will embrace these boys, whose aggressive reversion to savagery "proves" the power of testosterone-fueled behavior. In fact, one approach to studying this novel could involve research into the rash of books and articles about male violence, about raising and educating boys. Teachers might ask if or how this story would be different if girls had been on the island. Complementary books about girls include John Dollar by Marianne Wiggins, and Shelter by Joyce Anne Phillips. More interesting, however, is the text itself, in which the very absence of girls or women underscores how feminine or female stands in sharp contrast to masculine or male in Golding 's island world.
The three major characters, Ralph, Jack, and Piggy, form a sort of continuum of attitudes toward life as it develops on the island in relation to their past memories of "civilized" British boarding school. Ralph and Jack are both masculine boys, handsome, fit, strong. Piggy, on the other hand, is fat, asthmatic, and physically weak. Jack, the choir leader, enters equipped with a gang; the development of this group from choirboys to hunters and Jack 's deterioration from strong leader to cruel tyrant offer opportunities to look at male bonding and group violence, especially when we examine rape imagery in the
Author(s): Paula Alida Roy [(essay date 2003) In the following essay, Roy discusses how the lack of female influences in Lord of the Flies impacts the lives of Golding 's schoolboys not only on the island, but also at home.]
William Golding 's Lord of the Flies is peopled entirely by boys and, briefly, adult men. The absence of girls and women, however, does not prohibit interrogating this text for evidence of sexism/gender bias. We might begin by questioning the implicit assumptions about male violence and competitiveness that permeate Golding 's Hobbesian vision. Today 's sociobiologists will embrace these boys, whose aggressive reversion to savagery "proves" the power of testosterone-fueled behavior. In fact, one approach to studying this novel could involve research into the rash of books and articles about male violence, about raising and educating boys. Teachers might ask if or how this story would be different if girls had been on the island. Complementary books about girls include John Dollar by Marianne Wiggins, and Shelter by Joyce Anne Phillips. More interesting, however, is the text itself, in which the very absence of girls or women underscores how feminine or female stands in sharp contrast to masculine or male in Golding 's island world.
The three major characters, Ralph, Jack, and Piggy, form a sort of continuum of attitudes toward life as it develops on the island in relation to their past memories of "civilized" British boarding school. Ralph and Jack are both masculine boys, handsome, fit, strong. Piggy, on the other hand, is fat, asthmatic, and physically weak. Jack, the choir leader, enters equipped with a gang; the development of this group from choirboys to hunters and Jack 's deterioration from strong leader to cruel tyrant offer opportunities to look at male bonding and group violence, especially when we examine rape imagery in the
Cited: Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Riverhead Books, 1954. For Further Reading Kindlon, Dan and Michael Thompson with Teresa Barker. Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys. New York: Ballantine, 1999. Source Citation: Roy, Paula Alida. "Boys ' Club--No Girls Allowed: Absence as Presence in William Golding 's Lord of the Flies." Women in Literature: Reading Through the Lens of Gender. Ed. Jerilyn Fisher and Ellen S. Silber Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2003. 175-177. Rpt. in Children 's Literature Review. Ed. Tom Burns. Vol. 130. Detroit: Gale, 175-177. Literature Resources from Gale. Gale. DISCUS. 16 Dec. 2009 .