First off, before addressing the discussion I read, I should admit that Lord of the Flies makes me uncomfortable. I don't really like the book, nor the films based on it. Although I can - and have - smothered some of that discomfort with intellectual parsing of the book's themes and symbols, the fact remains that I think the book is frightening. To really address the cause of that fear would take a sharper psychoanalyst than me, but essentially it's because the book conforms a great deal to the way I understand the world to work. The boys may be thinly drawn surrogates for larger segments of society, but that doesn't change the fact that these types do exist - I've seen them in action even while constrained by the veneer of civilization that Golding's novel endeavored to remove.
But on to the discussion that I read. Here, the commentator equated the savagery that surfaces with 'original sin', and holds that Golding intimates it is only checked by the artificial structures of authoritarian rules and conventions. (I think this may be too simple of a synopsis, but I'll come back to that later.) After establishing those ground rules, the author of the comments proceeded to attack the many implausibilities within the narrative, as well as the ineffective characters, who were simple representations of types, and to suspect that Golding's ignorance of the natural world in which he placed the boys indicated that he was incapable of rendering an accurate assessment of human nature. The author concludes by judging the work dated, with advances in evolutionary psychology and ethography effectively nullifying Golding's key ideas.
There were other points that the discussion raised, though these were certainly the main thrust. The first one I'd address is the implausibility of many of the events in the novel, such as using Piggy's glasses to start a fire, or the existence of wild hogs on an uninhabited island, or even the tenderfoot boys scampering around an island made of coral and volcanic ash. Here the critic raises some valid points - whether some or all of the inconsistancies can be explained doesn't matter, Golding never does. And, like the poet says, this is where 'two roads diverged'. Either the problems disqualify the novel from serious consideration in your mind, or they don't. I suspect the difficulty will be exacerbated in ardent naturalists, where these flaws will sound extremely jarring; they may even give rise to the idea that inaccurate representation of nature negates the ability to comment on human nature. The first part of that is reasonable, the second nonsense. Commenting on human nature is not dependent on environmental factors, otherwise novels reflecting the author's experience in urban settings could never plumb the depths of the human psyche.
If you've chosen the more traveled road, and are opting to stick with the novel past its superficial faults, I think the next hurdle is each boy's character, which is admittedly one dimensional, and exists purely to illustrate a type. Again, it's understandable if this prevents you from maintaining enough interest to attempt to penetrate deeper themes. Still, I personally don't consider this a flaw, since to make the larger points, it was probably necessary to draw the boys in broad strokes, and because I don't remember ever thinking that the boys were all that unrealistic. I have known people who were all Jack, all Ralph, all Roger, and all Piggy. And even if Simon is a bit too angelic, the plausibility of the others compensates for his symbolic, Christ-like appearance.
Still hanging on? I think you should, but that's just me. The discussion I read equated Lord of the Flies with an examination of 'original sin', or our innate bestiality. With the preponderance of religious symbolism in the book (not least the appearance of Beelzebub as the Lord of the Flies), it seems like an obvious conclusion, yet regardless of what Golding may have intended, I think it transcends that limiting theme and, intentional or no, succinctly addresses the role of fear in society. Both Jack and Ralph metaphorically propose methods that they feel will provide for the tribe's safety and insulate them from despair; the vast majority of the boys are only looking for a leader, someone to do their thinking for them, and they unquestioningly surrender to the one who seems to promise the greatest security. That it happens to be Jack is at once circumstantial and, one suspects, somewhat artificial, yet at the same time, it has a feeling of inevitability about it.
One last observation, which does tend to date the book some, but seems relevent still, is the note that Golding wrote his book as a refutation of another called The Coral Island, written in 1857, and concerning a group of English boys who are confronted with similar circumstances, yet win over the Polynesian natives with their Christian beliefs. Golding even apparently took the proper names from the older work and used them to name his own characters. If The Coral Island was indicative of the mindset that believed the European was superior to indidgenous peoples simply because of his civilization, then certainly LoF could also be looked at as an anti-colonial tract, especially given its publication date of 1954. By claiming that civilization is only a temporary mirage, he struck the greatest blow he could strike against the idea of 'the white man's burden' - to make the colonizer the equal of the colonized.
What do you think?
