Lord of the flies door William Golding

Information about the book. Title : Lord of the Flies. Author : William Golding. Publisher : Faber and Faber, London. Published in : 1954. Number of pages : 255. Number of chapters : Twelve. Kind of story : Novel. Explanation of the title. Lord of the Flies is one of the names of the devil. When the boys put the hed of a sow on a stick to please a monster, it begins to rot and attracts a lot of flies. The book is mainly about evil, so the title is well chosen. Summary of the story. A group of British boys, all between six and twelve years old, are dropped on an island in the tropics. Nobody knows that they are there. On the beach Ralph meets Piggy, one of the boys, who has found a conch shell, which Ralph uses to call the boys. Jack, the leader of a small group of boys, wants to be the leader of all the boys, but they vote for Ralph. Ralph decides that he who has the conch can speak and that the others have to listen. He also says that Jack and his choir and the hunters, who have to take care of the food and the fire, which is lit to signal to ships navigating off shore. Then the hunters go hunting and forget the fire. Ralph and Piggy see a ship, but the ship can’t see them because the fire is out. Ralph is nao very angry with Jack. Jack angrily breaks the lens of Piggy’s glasses. Now the situation deteriorates. Jack and his choir become savages and paint their faces. There is a umour about a beast living in the woods. One night Eric and Sam spot something at the top of the mountain, which they assume to be the beast. Jack and Ralph go to the top of the mountain and run away, when they think they’ve seen the beast, which is actually a dead airman. Many of the boys are still scared. Jack starts and independent tribe and they hunt a pig, whose head they put on a stick to please the beast. Meanwhile, Simon is walking through the jungle and stares at the pig’s head, which is covered with flies. He imagines that the head, the lord of the flies is speaking to him. It warns him that nobody can escape from the beast, because the beast is latentl present in evrybody. Simon faints and when he revives he climbs to the top of the mountain, where he finds the dead airman. Then he walks down to tell the boys the truth about the beast. He is killed by Jack and his tribe, who think he’s the beast. Ralp and Piggy go away. Jack’s tribe steal Piggy’s glasses. Ralph and Piggy go to Jack to ask for the glasses to be returned. Suddenly they’re having a big fight, and Piggy is killed. The conch, symbol for order is destroyed. Ralph has to run for his life, and after a long pursuit he finds a naval man and knows he’s safe. He cries.
Theme. The central theme is evil. Golding pictures a group of boys who turn into evil savages under extreme circumstances. They return to their true nature, which according to Golding is evil. The story represents a kind of laboratory experiment. Characters. Ralph: The main character in the book. He remains the brave hero throughout. He and Piggy show their intelligence by realising the importance of the fire. Jack: He is the leader of the coir. After a while he develops a liking for killing pigs and becomes a savage. He even tries to kill Ralph. Piggy: He is the intelligent advisor of Ralph. He likes to read and wears spectacles. He’s called piggy because he‘s fat. He is killed at the end of the story. Storytelling. The story is told in a not too difficult manner. However some parts have to be read very carefully. The tension is built up all the way through and explodes at the end of the story. Time and place. The story takes place in an undefined period of time in a fictitious future after an atomic war. An isolated group of boys live on a tropical island with a beach a lagoon, a mountain, a castleshaped rock and a jungle; a real laboratory experiment by Golding. Tension. The writer creates tension by letting a lot of things be unknown to the reader. You have to guess a lot and that is what makes reading this novel fun. The reader doesn’t know what is going to happen next. The events always remain a little bit in the shadows. There are a lot of unexpected events in this book. That keeps the story exciting. My opinion. When I got Lord of the Flies from the library I started to read it immidiatly. I was intreaged. I couldn’t stop reading. I needed to know what was going to happen next. There were a lot of unexpected turns in the story. That is what cept the story exciting throughout the book. At some points you just knew that something was going to happen. By example when Ralph was running through the woods to get away from Jack and his hunters. You know that if Ralph is cought something terrible is going to happen to him. They already killed Simon and Piggy so it is more then possible that they will kill Ralph too when they catch him. Ralph runs, and hides. He is afraid, because he also knows what they are going to do to him when they find him. But then out of the blue a soldier finds him and he only thinks the’re playing a harmless game. What a contradiction between his assumption from the navy man and the reality. Ralph is running for his life, but in the civilised world something like this can’t happen. That’s apparent from the conclusion of the navy man. The doesn’t even think that something like this can happen in the world. We are all civilised people, aren’t we? This was my favorite part of the book. I would certainly recommend other people to read this book. It’s easy to read and exciting.