Lord of the Flies

I finished reading Lord of the Flies by William Golding this afternoon. I already knew a fair amount about the story mostly thanks to Stephen King, but also just because of various references and parodies, like the one on The Simpsons that inspired me to go ahead and read it. So I came into it knowing that Piggy was done for and that the boys would get rescued in the end. Anyway, I enjoyed the story although I found that occasionally I had trouble following the descriptions. I have to wonder if maybe this was on purpose, because of the surreal nature of the story. I was frustrated with the actions of Jack and his followers, which reminded me so vividly of the realities of being a kid. Every time Piggy accused the other boys of “acting like kids” I remembered being in elementary school and being so frustrated with the immaturity of so many of the other people kids. I would probably have been similarly ostracized when I was 12.

There is a short afterward by E. L. Epstein in the edition I have (1959 paperback published by Capricorn Books) that includes a quote from Golding’s description of the themes of the book that I found interesting. “The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable. The whole book is symbolic in nature except the rescue in the end where adult life appears, dignified and capable, but in reality enmeshed in the same evil as the symbolic life of the children on the island. The officer, having interrupted a man-hunt, prepares to take the children off the island in a cruiser which will presently be hunting its enemy in the same implacable way. And who will rescue the adult and his cruiser?” If that’s not food for thought I don’t know what is.