SUMMARY OF WILLIAMS GOLDING LORD OF THE FLIES AND ITS THEMES BY KARL MARX

SUMMARY OF WILLIAMS GOLDING LORD OF THE FLIES AND ITS THEMES BY KARL MARX

NB:THIS WORK WAS RESEARCHED AND ARRANGED BY AZUBUIKE PRECIOUS E,THIS IS NOT HIS ORIGINAL WORK

Plot Overview

In the midst of a raging war, a plane evacuating a group of schoolboys from Britain is shot down over a deserted tropical island. Two of the boys, Ralph and Piggy, discover a conch shell on the beach, and Piggy realizes it could be used as a horn to summon the other boys. Once assembled, the boys set about electing a leader and devising a way to be rescued. They choose Ralph as their leader, and Ralph appoints another boy, Jack, to be in charge of the boys who will hunt food for the entire group.

Ralph, Jack, and another boy, Simon, set off on an expedition to explore the island. When they return, Ralph declares that they must light a signal fire to attract the attention of passing ships. The boys succeed in igniting some dead wood by focusing sunlight through the lenses of Piggy’s eyeglasses. However, the boys pay more attention to playing than to monitoring the fire, and the flames quickly engulf the forest. A large swath of dead wood burns out of control, and one of the youngest boys in the group disappears, presumably having burned to death.

At first, the boys enjoy their life without grown-ups and spend much of their time splashing in the water and playing games. Ralph, however, complains that they should be maintaining the signal fire and building huts for shelter. The hunters fail in their attempt to catch a wild pig, but their leader, Jack, becomes increasingly preoccupied with the act of hunting.

When a ship passes by on the horizon one day, Ralph and Piggy notice, to their horror, that the signal fire—which had been the hunters’ responsibility to maintain—has burned out. Furious, Ralph accosts Jack, but the hunter has just returned with his first kill, and all the hunters seem gripped with a strange frenzy, reenacting the chase in a kind of wild dance. Piggy criticizes Jack, who hits Piggy across the face. Ralph blows the conch shell and reprimands the boys in a speech intended to restore order. At the meeting, it quickly becomes clear that some of the boys have started to become afraid. The littlest boys, known as “littluns,” have been troubled by nightmares from the beginning, and more and more boys now believe that there is some sort of beast or monster lurking on the island. The older boys try to convince the others at the meeting to think rationally, asking where such a monster could possibly hide during the daytime. One of the littluns suggests that it hides in the sea—a proposition that terrifies the entire group.

Not long after the meeting, some military planes engage in a battle high above the island. The boys, asleep below, do not notice the flashing lights and explosions in the clouds. A parachutist drifts to earth on the signal-fire mountain, dead. Sam and Eric, the twins responsible for watching the fire at night, are asleep and do not see the parachutist land. When the twins wake up, they see the enormous silhouette of his parachute and hear the strange flapping noises it makes. Thinking the island beast is at hand, they rush back to the camp in terror and report that the beast has attacked them.

The boys organize a hunting expedition to search for the monster. Jack and Ralph, who are increasingly at odds, travel up the mountain. They see the silhouette of the parachute from a distance and think that it looks like a huge, deformed ape. The group holds a meeting at which Jack and Ralph tell the others of the sighting. Jack says that Ralph is a coward and that he should be removed from office, but the other boys refuse to vote Ralph out of power. Jack angrily runs away down the beach, calling all the hunters to join him. Ralph rallies the remaining boys to build a new signal fire, this time on the beach rather than on the mountain. They obey, but before they have finished the task, most of them have slipped away to join Jack.

Jack declares himself the leader of the new tribe of hunters and organizes a hunt and a violent, ritual slaughter of a sow to solemnize the occasion. The hunters then decapitate the sow and place its head on a sharpened stake in the jungle as an offering to the beast. Later, encountering the bloody, fly-covered head, Simon has a terrible vision, during which it seems to him that the head is speaking. The voice, which he imagines as belonging to the Lord of the Flies, says that Simon will never escape him, for he exists within all men. Simon faints. When he wakes up, he goes to the mountain, where he sees the dead parachutist. Understanding then that the beast does not exist externally but rather within each individual boy, Simon travels to the beach to tell the others what he has seen. But the others are in the midst of a chaotic revelry—even Ralph and Piggy have joined Jack’s feast—and when they see Simon’s shadowy figure emerge from the jungle, they fall upon him and kill him with their bare hands and teeth.

The following morning, Ralph and Piggy discuss what they have done. Jack’s hunters attack them and their few followers and steal Piggy’s glasses in the process. Ralph’s group travels to Jack’s stronghold in an attempt to make Jack see reason, but Jack orders Sam and Eric tied up and fights with Ralph. In the ensuing battle, one boy, Roger, rolls a boulder down the mountain, killing Piggy and shattering the conch shell. Ralph barely manages to escape a torrent of spears.

Ralph hides for the rest of the night and the following day, while the others hunt him like an animal. Jack has the other boys ignite the forest in order to smoke Ralph out of his hiding place. Ralph stays in the forest, where he discovers and destroys the sow’s head, but eventually, he is forced out onto the beach, where he knows the other boys will soon arrive to kill him. Ralph collapses in exhaustion, but when he looks up, he sees a British naval officer standing over him. The officer’s ship noticed the fire raging in the jungle. The other boys reach the beach and stop in their tracks at the sight of the officer. Amazed at the spectacle of this group of bloodthirsty, savage children, the officer asks Ralph to explain. Ralph is overwhelmed by the knowledge that he is safe but, thinking about what has happened on the island, he begins to weep. The other boys begin to sob as well. The officer turns his back so that the boys may regain their composure.

Themes in Lord of the Flies

Theme #1

Loss of Innocence

Loss of innocence is one of the major themes of Lord of the Flies. Piggy, Ralph and “littluns” represent innocence. The death of Piggy and flight of Ralph from fear of death at the hands of Jack and his hunters is the loss of innocence. At first, the innocent boys have become hunters symbolically. However, later in the novel, they turn upon Ralph after killing Piggy. Hence, they become hunters of human life. This is where their innocence is lost in the maze of confusion.

Theme #2

Savageness and Society

‘Savageness’ in the society is another overarching theme of Lord of the Flies.Through the character of Jack and his hunters, William Golding has wonderfully displayed that human nature can quickly turn from prey to savagery. Except for Jack, all others are just followers. The ways of Jack tempt them toward hunting which is savagery in nature. With the passage of time, they become savages and start hunting human beings. This shows how savageness or savagery spread in a society when there are no restrictions.

Theme #3

Vice against Virtue

Vice against virtue is another major theme of the novel. William Golding has deliberately put children in the wilderness to evaluate how virtue is an innate feature of human nature, and how it loses against the vice. Although simple at first, a devious immoral action of Jack to dominate the children by taking leadership from Ralph turns into a vice. It gradually dominates others, and by the end of the novel, Ralph is left alone to represent virtue on that island.

Theme #4

End of Rationalism

Lord of the Flies shows how rationalism is a good virtue but also very difficult to practice. Piggy, the representative of rationalism and rational thinking, is timid when it comes to asserting his rationality. He fears that absurdity is dominating, and it will swallow him. Jack’s irrational reasoning becomes Piggy’s foe. Eventually, Jack succeeds in killing Piggy as soon as he finds an opportunity. With Piggy’s death, the rational thinking among the children comes to an end. Soon they degenerate into a herd of killers.

THEME #5

Absence of Social Norms

A major latent theme that William Golding has put into Lord of the Flies is the presence of social norms and traditions. The idea behind this theme is that it is the pressure of the social norms and traditions that force people to obey laws and rules or traditions. If there is an absence of social norms, people show their true nature, and it is mostly evil and vicious. However, social norms, traditions, and customs protect the weaker group. Hence, Piggy remained safe until there was a proper leadership and rule of conch. Yet he is instantly killed when conch becomes an obsolete thing

Theme #6
Dehumanization of Relations
Relations between human beings is one of the greatest mysteries. This novel shows when relations between human beings degenerates they reach to low-down state. Seeing the corrupt humans, you may want to believe the animals are better. Jack instantly orders the killing of Piggy when they become two parties, and war for domination ensues. Ralph and Jack are just two boys with normal relations. However, when Jack becomes his enemy, their relationship deteriorates. This is called dehumanization of relations; both boys turn against each other.

Theme #7
The Nature of Evil or Vice
It is generally believed that all human beings are good and that vice dominates only during trying circumstances. However, Lord of the Flies shows a different perspective. It shows that not only human beings are good or bad, but also some have a tendency toward evil or vice such as Jack. This leads to a total lapse of character if there is no social or legal restriction on humans. This also shows that evil spreads quickly if goodness is not present to obstruct it with the same proportion.

Theme #8
Community against Individual
Although the theme of a community against an individual is a minor one, it runs throughout the novel. From the very start, when Ralph becomes the leader and Piggy supports him, Jack turns against them. He forms his own group and community of hunters. Eventually, this community turns against Ralph after killing Piggy. Ralph is left alone and is on the run for his life. It shows how a community persecutes an individual who refuses to conform to destructive rituals.

Theme #9
Progress of Civilization
Lord of the Flies shows the progress of civilization through its incidents. The two groups of boys, hunters of Jack and followers of Ralph, compete with each other. Ralph represents civilization, order, and rule, while Jack and his group represent savagery and barbarism. The competition reaches its peak when conch is defied, and rules are broken. Finally, the hunters take over the island and hinder the progress of civilization. The representative of rationality, Piggy is killed, while Ralph runs for life.

Theme #10
Absence of Laws
When the children land on the island, they are left on their own. They do not have any social setup with traditions and rules. Ralph and Piggy try to set up a decent society through the assembly with the help of the conch. However, due to the absence of responsible adult supervision and guidance, they soon resort to violence. The strong group of hunters see that there are no binding laws and punishing authority. Therefore, they form a separate strong group and try to break their rules. Once the rules are broken, they are on the loose. Unfortunately, Piggy is killed in this mayhem. Lack of a leader makes them bolder, and they try to kill Ralph too, who fortunately saves himself when the British officer arrive. This shows that the absence of laws creates chaos and disorder that leads to killing the innocents and the weak.