To ask you to talk to me about Lord of the Flies?

[Chandlierheights]

It’s a book I’ve always fancied but never got round to reading till now. How in the name of God is it marketed as a kids’ book?!

It’s so brilliantly disturbing. I finished it a couple of days ago and can’t stop thinking it. Would the boys retain their hatred of Ralph once they’re on the boat that rescues them, or would they revert to the moral code they were raised with?

How did Piggy and Ralph get drawn into Simon’s murder?!

Please can we have a discussion about it? No one I know in real life has read it.

I think they would have rejoined society seamlessly - look at how men who work for charities behave towards women and children while working abroad.

It's basically about loss of innocence (which happens to us all, although it doesn't usually end up with murder!!). The final paragraph with its reference to "darkening of heart" has stayed with me for 25 years!

I think girls would have reacted totally differently to the situation. I read the book at school and watched the stage verion which was brilliant. I had this discussion with my year 11s and they felt a female would have completely changed the dynamic and tried to maintain order, more successfully than Ralph.

Like others I studied it in GCSE English. The other group got “Of Mice and Men”.

Fantastically disturbing. Our coursework was to write “Piggy’s diary”. (This was in the days before computers-ish (ahem) and I wrote mine then tore it and stained it with tea bags to make it look authentic, etc). I loved writing it.

It did freak me out a bit and I think it also got me in to stronger stuff (I went from that to Stephen King in a matter of weeks) and I’m now a murder mystery / criminal psychology junkie... which I attribute to Golding
(the week before I had been reading Buddys Song!)

It fascinates me how quickly the ranks are created (leader / minion) and also reminds me of the social experiment which was carried out in the 60s or 70s in the US / Canada where they took a group of people and made some prisoners and others prison guards and how they immediately took on their roles, with some of the “prison guards” acting in a wild, sadistic manner toward the “prisoners” and how little time it takes to become socially conditioned...
The experiment was stopped early in the end due to it no longer being easy to control.

I have only read it once and I found it disturbing enough that I didn't even re-read it when DD1 did it for GCSE (and I am quite 'involved' with my DDs' education).

Ideal for gcse in fact given the way we're going should be compulsory reading for everyone to give us all pause for thought. Maybe not on Love Island though.

Mollie - that study has been shown to have no scientific basis due to the influence of the people who set it up.

I agree that having girls would have changed the story but it would be really interesting to think about how all girls or a mixed group would fare

To me the book also mirrors the savagery of war and what ordinary men were doing on the front line and how horrifying some of their behaviour would be considered outside of war

Mollie85 The stanford prison experiment was not as you described at all, the experimenters deliberately manipulated the people for it to happen, it was garbage. People are nicer.

An experiment that pretty much reflected Lord of the Flies had been attempted before the book was published by Muzafer Sherif, and it was far from suggesting that Lord of the Flies would happen, indeed it took a couple of attempts to even get conflict in two groups going and they worked against a common problem once it existed. I'm dubious about the experiments being extended too much though as the experimenters were very involved.

Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of a true, wise friend called Piggy.

Gets me every time.

Oh I love that book.

I did not realise this at all so thank you for re-educating me (both PPs). The documentary I watched about it definitely made for disturbing watching.

Agree with Upstart Crow - but they would have been dangerous and traumatised and I think Roger and Jack would be likely to use violence. Once they have got away with it, I don't think they'd go back.

Taught a year 10 and they wrote/acted scripts about afterwards - some had the police interviewing Jack and thought he would pull the mental illness / duress behaviour and start crying and claiming victimhood.

It is a young adults book rather than a children's book isn't it?

I always thought the lack of girls makes sense, if you see it as a microcosm of geo-politics - women have always been very involved in society, but at that time still had limited involvement as senior political leaders. Also you couldn't include girls without sex becoming a factor: There is a very creepy, violent scene involving a pig which hints at underlying sexual frustration. The story would have been even more unpleasant had girls been on the island too, I fear.

Ralph's behaviour is shocking not just because he is "the nice one", but because at the start of the story he is the one we are supposed to identify with. It is not so shocking when Jack acts like a monster, but it is when someone like you acts like a monster. That's how I interpreted it anyway: You may think you are a "good" person with strong values instilled in you by society, but once society has been stripped away you don't know who you will become. (Just look at what goes on in war zones and other parts of the world where the rule of law ceases to exist).

Ralph is always on the periphery of violence and I think still retains an element of his original character and goodness, which is why the others depise him. I think Golding was fascinated by the rise of Hitler and the way in which good people can be driven to support evil or remain passive in the face of it.
The child like description of Piggy's death 'stuff came out turned red' is horrifying.

The documentary I watched about it definitely made for disturbing watching

It's certainly disturbing, and it's a great example of why universities need robust ethics departments, and possibly why ethics shoudl be a bigger part of everyones education (see facebook experiments etc.)

I think it's actually pleasing though that people do need manipulation to be bad, and even manipulation they often aren't.

Lord of the Flies is still a good book though, even though I think it very unlikely to happen in reality!

I definitely think Ralph retains his goodness. It’s startling how quickly they turn against their former leader and allow Jack to wield such control despite a lot of them being a lot worse off under Jack’s regime.

Do you think they genuinely believed they were killing the beast rather than Simon when they murdered him, or were they always aware it was Simon and enjoying murdering?

I was made to read this at my all boys grammar school in the 1970s. The general view was (a) it was as dull as fuck and (b) public school boys might act like this but no way would a bunch of South London State school kids. We hated it. Even Silas Marner was better.

They would have joined society seamlessly. Look how they change when the naval officer, a symbol of the adult world, arrives. But think about the irony that he too has been involved in warfare and the point they Golding is making here.
I teach LOTF at an all boys school. Love it.

I didn’t read much age 14 as it was for swots, however this was required reading for o level and really gripped my attention. That was 50 years ago. Brilliant book!

I need to read this again

I LOVE this book , I read it at 16, didn't appreciate it , then years later I rediscovered it.
There are some little gems like "Ralph reached deep inside himself for the worst word he knew : You let the bloody fire go out "

I saw the 1963 film, very atmospheric and 'innocent' but missed loads out .
I haven't even considered the remake , some things should never be tampered with.

Yes, they knew it was Simon and either got carried away or couldn't lose face by backing down,

The bit on the film where Simons body is carried away, the music

It’s a bleak metaphor for the inevitable darkness of man’s heart - the naval officer has the fragile veneer of civilisation but he represents the wider world destroyed by conflict. The boys have been playing out a smaller version of the chaos and violence in society. Golding was pointing out that the truly good and moral ie Simon are extremely rare and that most people are capable of terrible evil, even someone like Ralph. Also, he suggests that if true goodness does exist, most of society won’t recognise it or understand it and will ignore, mock and ultimately destroy it. Roger is the only character to be completely irredeemable with no goodness at all - he and Simon exist at opposite ends of the spectrum. Golding seemed to be portraying the rest of humanity as terribly fallible and unable to resist the descent into evil.

Ralph is changed forever - he will have nothing in common with the other boys (who quickly revert back to being children) but he has grown beyond the adults in the world as well. He is cursed with the lonely knowledge of the human condition.

It’s very bleak and I don’t subscribe to that view of humankind but you can see why Golding wanted to explore those ideas in the aftermath of WW2 and the Holocaust and in a society gripped by the Cold War and imminent threat of nuclear annihilation hanging over everyone’s heads.

I read it in first year seniors and we had to write an essay on how we thought girls would have acted and whether they would have murdered anyone. The conclusion we came to if i remember correctly was that they wouldn't, but there would be more isolating of others and no pack mentality. Not too bad for a bunch of 11 year olds, but I haven't read it since. Might do now.

Also Ralph is ‘the fair boy’ so yes, he is elected for his handsomeness but also because he values democracy. But democracy is unsustainable in the face of the terrible fear of the beast - which is of course the savagery within the boys themselves. They make a superficial judgement of Ralph but he does bear it out, until he succumbs to the murder of Simon himself. He admits the following day ‘that was murder’ so it’s clear that all the boys knew what they were doing, they were just caught up in the frenzy.

sirfred I remember reading that about the Stanford prison experiment as well. However, I also vividly remember my friends and I being 'hunted' across two fields by a pack of slightly older kids when we were about 10. We got away by hiding in a cornfield, and they ran past us, still very much in pursuit. I don't know what they would have done if they had caught us, but I was so frightened towards the end that I could barely walk, never mind run. I think that when kids are sure nobody is watching, sometimes something dark takes over.