Reflection For Lord Of The Flies Informative Essay

What do you change without distorting everything and ruining something great? Those words come up when I think about my job. Today, I have to figure out how to cut parts of the book, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, to make the book shorter without ruining the books ideas and greatness. In the book, a group of schoolboys from England are shot out of the sky and land on a deserted island. Through trying to get home and off the island, many conflicts arise due to people in charge, building homes and fires, and their longing for meat and the killing of the beast. Many themes across the book were done in subtle hints like loose teeth or a conch shell; for example, savagery and being born good or evil. My job is to cut sentences and scenes
For example, the chants are the words, “Kill the pig (or the beast). Cut his throat, Spill its blood.” During a hunt on page 114, the boys all go on a hunt and find a boar. Each boy gets a stab at it but the boar runs away alive. After this, Jack and the rest play a little game where they are the hunters and Simon is the boar. During this game, the boar says this chant and the game turns into an actual hunt and battle. Simon screams for them to stop and the only thing that stopped them was Jack stopping and then falling quiet to hear Simon and Robert ferocity. This shows how the chants are needed in the book because they are a channel for their inner savage to submerge. Furthermore, on the same page, the cheers caused everyone to get crazy including some of the more civilized inhabitants. Specifically, Ralph. During that scene, Ralph described Simon as meat and said, “Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering.” (Golding, 1954, p.114). Finally, on pages 152 and 153, there was a thunderstorm and a dance of both tribes, before the split. The boys all chanted, “Kill the beast. Cut his throat. Spill his blood,” over and over again. (Golding, 1954, p.152). During the dance, the boys made 2 circles where one was made of the bigger and older kids and the other made up of
For example, in the book, two people have always wanted power; one was driven from savagery and the other was more civilized and better to be a leader. The people first chose Ralph to be chief because of his smarts and his ideas. But as the story progressed, the people were driven to Jack because he was able to get meat and he had contaminated the minds of the older boys and the others followed. Their rivalry caused many conflicts like the conflict between the hunters and Ralph’s group when they decided to let the fire out and hunt for meat. Along with the conflicts during their attempts to find the beast, where Jack said afterwards, “‘Who thinks Ralph oughtn’t to be chief?’ He looked around expectantly at the boys ranged round, who had frozen. Under the palms there was deadly silence. ‘Hands up’ said Jack strongly, ‘whoever wants Ralph not to be chief?’ The silence continued, breathless and heavy and full of shame.” (Golding, 1954, p.127). Additionally, their rivalry symbolizes the lines between savagery and humanity. For instance, Ralph and his group of boy symbolize humanity and logic. They are the ones who want to get off the island, who want to keep everyone alive and safe. Whereas Jack and his pack of savages want only power and the kill. They are tools used by Golding to convey one of the overall themes of the book. Finally, their rivalry caused so many