Lord of the Flies

        I have read a lot this time (comparing to the previous ones), the plot had become more and more interesting, but at the same time, a little creepy and sad. After they chose Ralf as the chief, Jack became the leader of the hunter. While Ralf is building up the shelter, Jack was busy hunting the pigs, and that the fire they made to be seen by the ship had gone out. Ralf blamed Jack for not being responsible of the fire, which led to a fight that separated the group of kids. When Jack put on the paint to disguise himself, and hunted the very first pig with his hunters, they however triggered the monster inside them and became more and more savage in the following story. The group was divided into two parts, one was led by Ralf, and the other was the tribe formed by Jack. While Ralf has always stick to the plan of making fire to create smokes, having rules (the conch) and being rescued, Jack was a hunter and gave out the promises to had them meet to eat and feast to have fun. At the age of such little children would easily be attracted to Jack’s plan and felt boring to always keeping the fire on, and so most of the kids joined the tribe. The only members remained in Ralf’s group were Piggy, and the twins, Sam and Eric. 

 

As the number of hunting increased, things had been more and more violent. They all painted their face with black, green, and bloody red, sing while they hunt, and even had people to role play the pig and hurt him. There was always a rumor that there was a beast in the island, seen by the kids, later when Simon, a quiet kid, found out that there was never a beast, but the evil side of themselves were the scariest part, when talking to the lord of the flies. He ran back to the tribe during the feast and wanted to tell everyone about the breaking news. However, he was eventually killed when the tribe became insanely crazy while dancing and singing the song for hunting.

 

“Kill the beast! Cut its throat! Spill its blood! Do him in!”

 

The song was terrified to me while I was reading the book, it came out repeatedly showing the fierce of the kids. At the point when they had killed Simon, they were not caring about hunting animals but lives, and it had led to the next level of savage. The tribe than stole the specs from Piggy at night, and group up on the rock castle. The next day, Ralf, Piggy and the twins brought their conch, which was the only thing they had, and went on the mountain to argue with Jack. Seeing the kids covered all in paints, and not really recognized them by their face anymore. They had lost their own identity. Then they had some fight, when Roger pushed the huge rock off the hill, it crushed the conch and hit Piggy to fell off the cliff and died with his head hitting the rocks. The scene was sad because of the distraction of the conch symbols to the irreversible broken rules, and another death of one of the main and smart characters. The scariest part is the Jack and Roger didn’t seem to feel bad about the deaths, but as a power of the authority. After the death, they caught the twins and Ralf had run away. Finally, the twins joined the tribe, and all the kids were hunting for Ralf. They burnt the island and seeking for Ralf. In the very end, Ralf bumped into a navy, ironically the navies had come because of the huge fire on the island causing smokes, and they were saved.   

 

I was shocked while reading through the book, especially in the last few chapters. The story starts with the kids on the island that has beautiful views and plenty of fruits and water for them to live. However, the dark and savage side had been revealed since there weren’t any adults on the island, that means no rules. I think the reason why the author picked 6-12 years old children to write the story is because that was the age they were not fully educated yet. Therefore, being grouped on an island without any rules and laws, the beast inside them had grown bigger and bigger. Even when they returned to the normal world, I don’t think any of them can live like they used to be, by losing trust in people. 

 

There was a common question about whether you think you will eat your friends on an island, if you need to survive. I could never give the answer, because I couldn’t imagine how hopeless the situation would be, and maybe, deep inside us are the beasts that we never would uncover in the world of laws. I later found out that the lord of the flies is actually a devil in hell, the legend has it that it caused the black death, his name was Beelzebub. The name “lord of the flies” came from the symptoms of the disease, leaving the body rotten and repealing flies to come.  In the period, plague doctors used an extreme way to cure the patients, by hitting them with their crutch, leading the death to people. People believed that the whole people killing people part was what Beelzebub really wanted to see. I think that’s why the book picked the title “Lord of the Flies” to describe the dark side of human. Therefore, this is an interesting and amazing book to read, even though I was a little scared after reading it, plus the story of Beelzebub is frighten too. I will read it, maybe years later, and see if I can understand more or have different interpretation about the book!!!