Lord of the Flies Analysis
Why did things go wrong for the boys on the island?
William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’ is a book about the true nature of young boys and how quickly they can resort to savagery. This book was written in the aftermath of World War II. In this book Golding perfectly portrays the nature of humans, the power hungry attitude that causes so many problems. After a very short amount of time things begin to go wrong for the boys. In this essay I am going to explore the reasons why everything began to fall apart. One of the many reasons why things begin to go wrong is the indulgent nature of all the boys.
All the boys on the island face a decision, pleasure versus reality, the Littluns and hunters choose pleasure; Ralph, Piggy and Simon were the few to choose reality. Jack saying ‘I’m going to have some fun’ reinforces the idea: that all the boys make a choice very early on, this choice decides whether or not they survive the ordeal. Many ‘desert island’ stories make survival look simple and building shelter easy; ‘Huts on the Beach’ shows why this is not true. In this chapter Ralph tries and fails to build shelters for everyone, he is helped at first by the Littluns but they eventually bore of the process and find another activity. Simon is the only one who helps him throughout. When Jack says ‘fun’, it normally results in violence and destruction. A great example of this is when in one of Jack’s many tribal chants and dances the hunters mistake Simon for the beast and in doing so attack and kill him. Simon is an exception to the way Littluns think.
The psychology of the Littluns is portrayed by Golding as young children behave in real life; they flit from one activity to another just like flies. No-one treats them as equals as shown by these quotes: Jack jokingly says instead of hunting a pig ‘use a littlun’; when the group splits Piggy is talking about the Littluns and Ralph says ‘they don’t count.’ These two quotations show the unimportance of the Littluns to the
William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’ is a book about the true nature of young boys and how quickly they can resort to savagery. This book was written in the aftermath of World War II. In this book Golding perfectly portrays the nature of humans, the power hungry attitude that causes so many problems. After a very short amount of time things begin to go wrong for the boys. In this essay I am going to explore the reasons why everything began to fall apart. One of the many reasons why things begin to go wrong is the indulgent nature of all the boys.
All the boys on the island face a decision, pleasure versus reality, the Littluns and hunters choose pleasure; Ralph, Piggy and Simon were the few to choose reality. Jack saying ‘I’m going to have some fun’ reinforces the idea: that all the boys make a choice very early on, this choice decides whether or not they survive the ordeal. Many ‘desert island’ stories make survival look simple and building shelter easy; ‘Huts on the Beach’ shows why this is not true. In this chapter Ralph tries and fails to build shelters for everyone, he is helped at first by the Littluns but they eventually bore of the process and find another activity. Simon is the only one who helps him throughout. When Jack says ‘fun’, it normally results in violence and destruction. A great example of this is when in one of Jack’s many tribal chants and dances the hunters mistake Simon for the beast and in doing so attack and kill him. Simon is an exception to the way Littluns think.
The psychology of the Littluns is portrayed by Golding as young children behave in real life; they flit from one activity to another just like flies. No-one treats them as equals as shown by these quotes: Jack jokingly says instead of hunting a pig ‘use a littlun’; when the group splits Piggy is talking about the Littluns and Ralph says ‘they don’t count.’ These two quotations show the unimportance of the Littluns to the