Symbolic power struggle on the island..

Obviously, the biggest conflict throughout this book is the struggle between Ralph and Jack, or good against evil.
Ralph, or good, could arguably win. In the end, the naval officer asks who is in charge, and Jack backs down when Ralph steps up. This shows that even though Jack started his own tribe, he recognizes that Ralph can take care of the group better than he can.
However, I think that Jack, or in this case evil, wins overall on the island. By the end of the book, Ralph is literally alone. Sam and Eric, his last living companions, are forced to join Jack's group, and they're tortured until they give Roger all the information he wants. They even give his hiding spot away when he tells them in private. Ralph is forced to run across the island alone while being chased by the savages. By the time the officer gets there, evil is chasing good off of the island with the use of fire. So, in general, I feel that Golding's point in Lord Of The Flies is that all of us have the capacity for evil, and if unchecked, evil will win.

-Courtney Neuenschwander :)

Lord of the Flies. "Savages all around me.."

I believe that since Ralph is that only one that is left in "his tribe" then he will eventually be murdered by Jack's tribe because of the fact that he has no one beside him anymore; all of his friends are dead. I cannot even imagine what is going through Ralph's mind as he takes off running into the forest. He is probably terrified. I would be too if I were him in that type of situation. He knows that Jack is going to come after him sometime; just the fact that Jack has the element of surprise of his side would make me even more scared. I also think that Ralph is an extremely brave boy for his age; also Jack is extremely savage like for his age. This type of situation with all these boys being stuck on this island without and adults just terrifies me to death. If there were adults on the island then I would hope that things would be completely different.

*ps. I have not read chapter 12 yet.. So I have no idea what has happened yet.

-Kenzie Smith (:

Woo Hoo!

So yippee they got rescued, right? And oh boy! Here's a naval officer, he'll help us... oh wait. He's embarrassed and turns away so these boys can pull themselves together. There're young! They don't "pull themselves together," adults help them through that process. If you were a boy (or a girl) on a island, for a good amount of time, with no adults, would you want the person that rescues you to feel embarrassed turn away when they finally come? Probably not. You probably just want to get the heck out of there and back to your family. Yes, you are being rescued and obviously that was Ralph's goal, but get them the heck outta there!
Not to sound like I don't care about the boys feelings, but they can cry on their way home for goodness sakes. As I read the last paragraph I got a little upset at Mr. Officer. Was that Golding's goal? When he first got there he was surprised that a group of British boys would end up like this and he really doesn't seem very caring towards these boys. I think maybe it was Golding's goal to let us see that even when they get saved(which is a very good thing), it was just someone getting the job done. Which pulls back to his ultimate goal, that people are bad at heart.
-Brittany Jurczyk

Deus ex Machina by Gwen J. Montes

Anybody who has analyzed The Lord of the Flies can tell you that Simon is a Christ figure. However, the biblical themes don't end there. Throughout this novel I have noticed several allusions to the Bible other than Simon's character and, as you all know from my Fahrenheit 451 post, I am a total sucker for biblical imagery.

In chapter eight, when Simon was all delirious, stumbling through the forest, and talking to the pig's head, I thought of the story of when Christ in the wilderness. In this story, Christ fasts for fourty days in the desert. During that time he was approached by the devil and tempted and ridiculed. This is similar to Simon's situation in his conversation with the Lord of the Flies. Which, leads me to my second biblical theme.

As we discussed before, The Lord of the Flies is translated from the Hebrew word meaning Beelzebub. The beast, however is also mentioned often in the bible and is used in referrence to the antichrist. In the book of Revelation, the Bible mentions two beasts. One arises from the sea and the other from the earth. From there, humanity begin to worship the beast and kill anyone who refuses. The antichrist is the adversary of Christ and the beast on the island - the manifestation of the boys' evil - is also Simon's adversary and eventually leads to his death.

cited here and cited here

Finally, the last bit of biblical imagery isn't exactly biblical. Deus ex machina -a Greek phrase meaning "God from the machine" - is a literary device in which an impossible problem is solved abruptly by the intervention of a new character, object etc. In The Lord of the Flies, the arrival of the naval officer is a perfect example of deus ex machina. The boys hunting Jack almost immediately stop their pursuit as soon as they see the naval officer, a figure of authority, on their island. Although I personally believe that this ending is about as anti-climactic as they come, it gives us readers the oppurtunity to come up with our own conclusions as to what happends to the boys after they are rescued.

cited here

Inner Evil

The boys have completely lost it. When Jack starts being consumed with the thought of hunting and gets the some of the other boys to go along with it the boys start falling. These are boys that grew up to never hit or steal or let alone kill, but when they are alone and are able to do whatever they want with no one telling them differently they go crazy. Anyone can fall to this inner evil. It happens to "perfect" little children and adults that have grown up around violence. I do think that people are born good, but they have an evil part of them. Like Britany has been saying, whether you feed that side or not is up to you. Many people, like Ralph when he hits the pigs nose with his spear, feel the rush but they don't let it consume them. Though some people do let it take them over and thus ruin their lives. It comes down to whether you want to be a good person and push it back or if you want to let it come forward.

Erin Dingle

Golding's Thoughts and Yours

Years later in an interview tiha reporter from the New York World-Telegram and Sun (1963), Golding insisted that the novel’s primary purpose is to serve as a warning of man’s potential for brutality to his fellow man. He said, “I learned during World War II just how brutal people can be to each other. Not just Germans or Japanese, but everyone. I tried to point that out…Some have said that the brutality of the novel is impossible. It’s not. Look at any newspaper.”

What do you think? Do you agree with Golding's theme? Offer evidence one way or another.

If you're stuck #2....

...get your brain going! Here are some discussion prompts you could use for your posting if you don't have another idea. It could make for some good discussion.

Golding has referred to himself as a pessimist intellectually and emotionally an optimist. Discuss _Lord of the Flies_ in light of this.