Lord of the flies door William Golding

Characters

Ralph: Ralph is the image of a gentleman, he is socialized, civilized, intelligent and charismatic. He is a natural leader and at all times remains polite and diplomatic. He is the one who suggests the boys make a fire to attract attention from passing ships. He is the one to tell the boys to make huts for protection. In the beginning Ralph is excited now that they are on an island without any adults, but the more the story progresses, the more excitement Ralph loses. He starts longing for home and for the familiar. As he gains experiences on the island, he loses his naivety and his innocence. Over time he starts to lose his power of organized thought. But Ralph is also the only one to keep some sense. Some sense of morality. When he encounters the officer at the beach he is not relieved at being rescued from a certain grisly death, but discomforted over "his filthy appearance," an indication that his civility had endured his ordeal. Though he had now learned that humankind’s natural character is evil, only held back by intellectual and morality.

Jack Merridew: Ralph on the other hand is the image of evil and violence, the dark side of human nature. He is a former choirmaster. He wants to make rules, and punish those who break them. On the island he wants to hunt for meat, and that is his main interest. Instead of working together with Ralph, Jack tries to dominate him, questioning his authority as a leader with the conch. the boys had been moderated by rules set by society against physical aggression. On the island, however, that social conditioning fades rapidly from Jack's character. He quickly loses interest in that world of politeness and boundaries, which is why he feels no compunction to keep the fire going or attend to any of the other responsibilities for the betterment or survival of the group. Over time Jack gets power-mad, the dictator in his personality becomes dominant. When he encounters the officer, he understands that the old rules will be enforced again.

Piggy: Piggy is the intellectual of the group, he has glasses (which are symbolic for vision and truth), is overweight and has asthma. Despite his intelligence, he is the most vulnerable of the group. He represents the rational world. Throughout the book he acts as Ralphs adviser. He is not fitting as a leader. Piggy is the ‘brainy representative of civilization’.

‘Piggy is so intent on preserving some remnant of civilization on the island that he assumes improbably enough that Jack's raiders have attacked Ralph's group so that they can get the conch when of course they have come for fire. Even up to the moment of his death, Piggy's perspective does not shift in response to the reality of their situation. He can't think as others think or value what they value. Because his eminently intellectual approach to life is modelled on the attitudes and rules of the authoritative adult world, he thinks everyone should share his values and attitudes as a matter of course. Speaking of the deaths of Simon and the littlun with the birthmark, he asks "What's grownups goin' to think?" as if he is not so much mourning the boys' deaths as he is mourning the loss of values, ethics, discipline, and decorum that caused those deaths.’

Simon: Simon is a saint/Christ-like figure. He is philosophical, silent and withdrawn. Therefore, he has a secret hiding spot in the jungle where he spends time alone. He is the one who comes to the understanding that the beast is not something that the boys can hurt or kill (at least not externally), but that it is part of the boys themselves. He also discovers that the monster is a paraglider, but when he wants to tell the others this, he is mistaken for the beast, and is killed. When Simon tries to visualize what the beast might look like, "there arose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick". Simon is a visionary.

‘By courageously seeking to confront the figure on the mountaintop, Simon fulfills his destiny of revelation. He doesn't get to share his revelation with the other boys because they are not ready to accept or understand it.’

Form

The story is told by an omniscient narrator. Mainly told through Ralph his perspective.

Theme and moral

The main idea Golding expresses in his work, it that of the evil nature of humankind. He shows us what happens when man is stripped of the rules of civilisation. In his story a lot of allegories are being used. The island of just a few square miles, is an allegory of the world. The boys are allegories of all the people, left with nothing but their inner nature. Ralph and Jack are, besides being each other’s opposites in personality, allegories for two different approaches to leadership. While Ralph largely maintains his civilized good attitude, Jack gets power-mad and dictates discipline. This way, Golding expresses a deeply pessimistic view of human nature.

‘When Lord of the Flies was first released in 1954, Golding described the novel's theme in a publicity questionnaire as "an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature."’

‘When Lord of the Flies was first released in 1954, Golding described the novel's theme in a publicity questionnaire as "an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature."’

He places supposedly innocent schoolboys in the protected environment of an uninhabited tropical island to illustrate the point that savagery is not confined to certain people in particular environments but exists in everyone as a stain on, if not a dominator of, the nobler side of human nature. Though, Ralph does learn that, even though the human nature is dark and evil, at the same time, intellect, reason, sensitivity and empathy are the tools to keep evil away from us.

‘Maybe there is a beast . . . .maybe it's only us.’

My opinion

Of course Golding’s pessimism is understandable. He wrote this book in 1954, just after the second world war, where six million Jews were killed and the USA threw two atomic bombs on Japan.

The book has an interesting concept. The question whether man is naturally evil or good, is a question that will continue to exist. And yes, it is also very pessimistic. I like to believe that the human nature is somewhat good. But that conversation would get philosophical very quickly. Although I am very interested in the topic. Golding does think that man has also a good side, as portrayed by Ralph and Simon and Piggy. For if there was no good in man, why would they have civilisations to keep evil under control. I must say that the vocabulary used in this book, was sometimes a bit hard. Not that I couldn’t understand what was being said, but some words I didn’t know. Ululation for example, meaning ‘gehuil’ in Dutch. The symbolism and the deeper meaning, although more obvious than in some books I think, really kept my attention. And as I said, it is topics like these, that you could philosophize over for a long time.