Skip to main content

Lord of the Flies



What dominates in human nature: good or evil? Is the human being a good creature with some dark shades or is he an evil creature capable of some goodness? Is the darkness that pervades the cosmos [85%, according to science] a symbol of the darkness within the human heart? William Golding would answer ‘yes’ to that.

His novel, Lord of the Flies, tells the story of some children aged 6 to 12 to show that evil is intrinsic to human nature. The children are marooned on an uninhabited island because of a plane crash. The plane was evacuating some schoolchildren during the ongoing war and it was shot down. Some children escape miraculously. What do they do on the island where there are no adults to supervise them?

Ralph emerges as a leader with civilised ideas on how to run a society. He tries to implement law and order among the children. Piggy, the intellectual, and Simon, the saint, are of great assistance in the process. But the human society does not belong to the philosopher-king, the intellectual and the saint. Far from it. It belongs to politicians. And they are ruthless.

Jack emerges as the counterforce to the civilisation that Ralph tries to cultivate on the island. Jack is governed by his instincts. He knows how to get power over others. He knows how to rule, by hook or by crook. He emerges as the ruler on the island. The goodness that Ralph and his friends try to cultivate doesn’t enchant the children. Jack’s savagery is the real fun. They kill wild boars and celebrate the killing in ritual dances. They erect the head of one of those killed pigs on a pole in order to appease the mysterious monster on the island. The monster is their own creation, in fact, partly by fear and partly by the need for a supernatural power.

When there is no wild boar to chase, Jack and his team use one of the children in place of the boar for their hunting game. Robert is almost killed in the first such game. Jack doesn’t hesitate to use the littlest children for the game. He uses these children as servants and toys. He doesn’t value human beings. He is a narcissist; he is the born ruler.

The rift between the groups – Jack’s and Ralph’s – becomes wider and more bitter. Jack pulls away more children from Ralph’s circle by using various tricks. The roasted pig’s meat is a bait, for example. Jack doesn’t hesitate to use force too; he ties up the twins like prisoners of war.

Yes, it becomes a virtual war between the two groups, between civilisation and savagery. Simon and Piggy are killed in the process. Ralph manages to escape by sheer luck; Jack and his followers had tried to burn him alive. Seeing the fire, a ship that was passing by stops. The boys are saved. Even the saviour, a British naval officer, is shocked to hear what Jack and his followers did on the island.

Evil prevails on the earth. Man is more evil than good. What we call civilisation is a thin veneer of sophistication we have put upon our intrinsic savagery for the sake of our survival as a species or at least as communities (of religion, nation, or whatever). “Scratch the civilisation and savagery bleeds out,” as British historian and author Felipe Fernandez-Armesto said in his scholarly book titled Civilizations.

There are good people too. But their goodness is too feeble in the midst of all the savagery. The intrinsic goodness of a Simon is destined to be martyred. The rational goodness of a Piggy will be destroyed albeit accidentally. The learnt goodness of Ralph may manage to escape by the skin of its teeth. Evil will continue to boss over – with the appearance of civilisation on the surface.


PS. This is part of a series being written for the #BlogchatterA2Z Challenge. The previous parts are:
Tomorrow: The Moon and Sixpence

Comments

  1. Sad but true reflection of current day status of world in general. We see the manipulative forces winning over the rational ones.
    What I am surprised at is the fact that such instincts are evident in the children as young as 6 to 12 years?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Golding was a teacher and he knew what would happen if pre-teen boys are left to themselves without adult supervision.

      Delete
  2. Wow this book looks sinister, and eerily familiar with real world. very well-writ

    ReplyDelete
  3. This should be an interesting read! Very well written.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I will definitely read this book because it seems to have some relation to the abuse I faced as a child in the hands of my peers in School.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Children are not as innocent as we believe them to be.

      Delete
  5. I've thought of picking this book up for long. It's scary what the human mind is capable of when pushed to its extremes.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yet another one..One which is on my reading list but have some how not got around it. Thank you. Now I will. Does it in some way resonate with Animal Farm?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Animal Farm is a dystopian fable about the futility of Russian Revolution. This one is about the viciousness of human nature as seen in children.

      Delete
  7. Added to my growing TBR list! Thanks for the review!
    www.nooranandchawla.com

    ReplyDelete
  8. I have heard a lot about this book but got to know the gist of it through your review. Adding it to my TBR pile. Thanks for your recommendation!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Welcome. I'm not exactly reviewing books here since these are classics.

      Delete
  9. Though its disturbing to see the children too! Tragic tale, sounds like survival of the fittest to me? Adding another one to TBR.. by the last post of your series, sure to have a large pile yo read..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It does gratify me to see many people adding these books to their to-read lists.

      Delete
  10. I read Lord of the Flies during my Masters. Loved your interpretation of the book.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I think it was George R. R. Martin who said that teenaged kids have a lot of cruelty inside them. Golding of course shows that to be the case with even younger children.

    The base factor, the animal inside, taking hold within and without, while horrible to read and watch, is a theme we see reverberating around us.

    At the same time, there's goodness too. Like the stories of random people helping strangers in the lockdown. Darkness is the absence of light and all that.

    All said and done, the book's theme that mere good ideas don't invite followers and power is true.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Of course, there's much goodness, but it's rather feeble as you point out too.

      Delete
  12. I'd like not to believe it but I so know that it is the truth. Thank you for sharing this wonderful story and book suggestion.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I think there is a series on Netflix based on this book. Society I think is the name of the series.

    It's not hard to believe that man is inherently evil...that is probably why we had religion and later laws to protect the physically weak and meek.

    Lovely post!

    Cheers,
    CRD

    Episode 10 in the series 'Idiosyncrasies of a Covidiot"

    JAMBOREE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even religions haven't succeeded much in taming the beast within the human breast.

      Delete
  14. This is reality of life, today also political leader killing humanity just to gain some benefits.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Thanks for the summary. Adding to my to read list.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Country where humour died

Humour died a thousand deaths in India after May 2014. The reason – let me put it as someone put it on X.  The stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra called a politician some names like ‘traitor’ which made his audience laugh because they misunderstood it as a joke. Kunal Kamra has to explain the joke now in a court of justice. I hope his judge won’t be caught with crores of rupees of black money in his store room . India itself is the biggest joke now. Our courts of justice are huge jokes. Our universities are. Our temples, our textbooks, even our markets. Let alone our Parliament. I’m studying the Ramayana these days in detail because I’ve joined an A-to-Z blog challenge and my theme is Ramayana, as I wrote already in an earlier post . In order to understand the culture behind Ramayana, I even took the trouble to brush up my little knowledge of Sanskrit by attending a brief course. For proof, here’s part of a lesson in my handwriting.  The last day taught me some subhashit...

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...

Violence and Leaders

The latest issue of India Today magazine studies what it calls India’s Gross Domestic Behaviour (GDB). India is all poised to be an economic superpower. But what about its civic sense? Very poor, that’s what the study has found. Can GDP numbers and infrastructure projects alone determine a country’s development? Obviously, no. Will India be a really ‘developed’ country by 2030 although it may be $7-trillion economy by then? Again, no is the answer. India’s civic behaviour leaves a lot, lot to be desired. Ironically, the brand ambassador state of the country, Uttar Pradesh, is the worst on most parameters: civic behaviour, public safety, gender attitudes, and discrimination of various types. And UP is governed by a monk!  India Today Is there any correlation between the behaviour of a people and the values and principles displayed by their leaders? This is the question that arose in my mind as I read the India Today story. I put the question to ChatGPT. “Yes,” pat came the ...

The Ramayana Chronicles: 26 Stories, Endless Wisdom

I’m participating in the A2Z challenge of Blogchatter this year too. I have been regular with this every April for the last few years. It’s been sheer fun for me as well as a tremendous learning experience. I wrote mostly on books and literature in the past. This year, I wish to dwell on India’s great epic Ramayana for various reasons the prominent of which is the new palatial residence in Ayodhya that our Prime Minister has benignly constructed for a supposedly homeless god. “Our Ram Lalla will no longer reside in a tent,” intoned Modi with his characteristic histrionics. This new residence for Lord Rama has become the largest pilgrimage centre in India, drawing about 100,000 devotees every day. Not even the Taj Mahal, a world wonder, gets so many footfalls. Ayodhya is not what it ever was. Earlier it was a humble temple town that belonged to all. Several temples belonging to different castes made all devotees feel at home. There was a sense of belonging, and a sense of simplici...