On the inborn human nature - Lord of the flies

One of the themes of the novel, ‘Lord of the flies’ is that human’s inherent nature is savage and cruel. Therefore, Golding appears to say that our civilized society is highly prone to break into conflicts or wars, and that these conflicts or war do not result from a defect in the system but from inherent flaws in man.

In China, there have been two opposite view points on the fundamental human nature. The one is that human’s nature is inherently good, which is due to Mengja. The other is due to Soonja who believed that human’s inherent nature is bad. Both philosophers lived around BC 200. On the other hand, Hindu view point in India around BC 2000 is that the distinction of good and bad is not universal, but is arbitrary and relative. Suppose that there lives a bacterium in our stomach, but that a new bacterium ‘invades’ into the stomach and killed the first bacterium to monopolize the 'food' in our stomach. Should we feel sorry or sympathetic to the first killed bacterium in our stomach?

I feel that Mengja’s view is naïve and not quite correct. It is likely that Soonja’s (or Golding’s) or even Hindu view points are closer to the truth. Although I am not completely sure, Golding might have some of Hindu view points too, when he says that the dead bodies of Simon and Piggy are cleaned away by the enormous natural power of the sea, as I mentioned in my another blog.

Memorable setting of Lord of the flies

The boys fall in an unmanned, tropical, coral island whose description by Golding is very detailed. The shore where boys stay and sleep is described to have a lot of palm trees making shadow on the ground and behind those trees is dark jungle and space formed by scar. The shore is white because of the coral reef and surf while the sea is dark blue. There are a high platform of pink granite soil and coarse grass on top of it. One of the other significant places would be the top of the mountain. When the three boys arrive at the top they discover a circular hollow filled with overflowing blue flowers. The flowers are strewn over all places on the top of the mountain.

The island is described as a very beautiful and peaceful place like the setting of The Coral Island, a classic boys’romantic adventure story whose plot is exactly opposite to Lord of the Flies. While reading the first few chapters of Lord of the Flies, it is likely that a reader expects a happy ending. However, it is shocking that murder takes place in such a peaceful island forming a sharp contrast between the setting and the conflict.

Enormous natural power cleans up vicious things human have done, restoring the peaceful and beautiful setting. The crashed plane has been dragged out by the storm. The dead bodies of Simon and Piggy also have been removed by waves into sea. Humans destroy and nature cleans up, and this sequence continues, even at this moment. Would this alternating sequence lasts forever?

Significant passages from Lord of the flies

I like the two passages in chapters 9 and 11. The children thought that Simon was the beast and beat him. Eventually he was killed and ‘its blood was staining the sand’. Then ‘the great wave of the tide moved farther along the island and the water lifted. Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon’s dead body moved out toward the open sea’. This is the end of chapter 9. Another similar passage appears in chapter 11 after Piggy’s death - ‘the sea breaths again in a long, slow sigh, the water boils white and pink over the rock; and when it goes sucking back again, the body of Piggy is gone’.

Virtue symbolized by Simon and Piggy is destroyed by vice embodied by the savage. Of course, this unfortunate disturbs us awfully because we believe that it is not right for vice to win against virtue. The above passages, however, say that the results of intense conflicts between virtue and vice do not have much meaning because they disappear immediately by supernatural power as if nothing has happened. Perhaps, there are no such things like virtue or vice to begin with. Or the universe might not care much about the difference of virtue and vice on the tiny Earth, although it is an important matter of life and death to us.

These two passages also remind me of my favorite poem, ‘On the seashore’ written by Rabindranath Tagore.

Mood of Lord of the flies

Compared with other dystopian novels I have read, Lord of the Flies is not excessively gloomy. Most of time, I felt rather relaxed, while reading the novel. Unlike to our usual expectation after a plane crash, majority of the boys find things to eat by themselves and have fun not being stressed that they are caught in an island. They are rather enjoying living in the island because there aren’t any adults. This attitude of many boys makes the situation doesn’t look serious.

As time progresses, along with the fear about beasts, they start to worry if they end up staying in the island for the rest of their life. From that point the mood changes to hopelessness. As the boys’ cruelness starts to appear, I am shocked because I couldn’t expect those terrible things to happen. I am surprised not only by what the boys have done, but also by the progressing, and sometimes rhythmical, change of the mood. The mood becomes extremely horror at the end of the novel. I feel that the relaxed atmosphere at the beginning makes the boys appear more ruthless.

I like this change of mood better then the end-to-end gloomy mood such as in 1984 written by George Orwell. I remember that 1984 made me feel oppressive and mentally weary while reading 1984. I was more relaxed while reading Lord of the Flies. Furthermore, the intense and horror mood that lasts just for a short time at the end appears to be more effective.

I found the mood, setting and plot of the classic film (1979), 'Apocalypse Now' is a lot similar to those of Lord of the Flies.

The climax of Lord of the flies

The climax of this novel is when Piggy is killed by Roger in chapter 11. Ralph and Piggy go to Castle Rock to get Piggy’s stolen glasses back. They are stop by Roger and Jack who appeared from the jungle refuses to return the glasses. Piggy lifts the conch and says repeatedly ‘Which is better – to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?’ From the action of Piggy who still sticks to the old conch protocol, we can see that he is the kind of person who always respects the order or rule even though no one else would think that the rule is still effective. At that time Roger throws a rock to Piggy that strikes Piggy ‘a glancing blow from chin to knee’. Then the conch breaks and Piggy falls from the cliff and is killed with ‘his head opened and stuff come out and turned red’.

Piggy is the first who is killed by the savage on purpose. (The previous killing of Simon is somewhat accidental.) Piggy represents the orders or rules of our society, and therefore this killing symbolizes the complete destruction of civilized nature of the British children.

I was terrified by this chapter not only by the killing of Piggy itself, but also by the silent grave terrorist, Roger. Even Jack feels ‘the hangman’s horror clung round him’. Samneric cease yelling when ‘Roger advances upon them as one wielding a nameless authority, edging past the chief, only just avoiding pushing him with his shoulder’.

Main characters of Lord of the flies

Major protagonists are Ralph, Simon and Piggy while antagonists are Jack and Roger. Ralph is elected as the leader of the children by popular majority vote. He has leadership, and looks believable, dependable and well-mannered. His leadership comes from instinct and not as much as from his deep insight about human nature, and therefore he was not able to keep the children civilized when the antagonist Jack allures them into instinctive animal pleasure. Simon is good-natured and has insight in the true nature of man, although he is a little younger than the other main characters. His flaw is that he wishes to be alone and does not like to talk in front of others. Piggy is smart and wishes everything in universe to be in good order. However, he is a little lazy and his appearance is not attractive so that others make fun of him. Jack was the leader of the choir before the plane crash, but lost the popular vote against Ralph because he looks ‘ugly without silliness’ and intimidates others. Later he wins against Ralph by providing the children with meat in return for submission to him. He represents the savage nature in man. Roger is quiet and dismal. He appears to be resentful to everyone probably because he has an abused childhood. He is much worse than Jack and represents the evil.

Do I like them? No, because they all have character flaws. They are far from idealized heroes in ‘ordinary’ happy-ending novels. I should however admit from the bottom of my heart that theses characters represent the realistic human natures of you and I.

Current situation in the world related to Lord of the flies

It may be argued that many conflicts between individuals, between individual and society, or between nations result from our internal character flaws. One example I can think of is the massacre at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. The shooter Seung-Hui Cho who was also a student killed thirty two other students and himself. The cause of Cho’s behavior is generally regarded as his mental illness and resentment to other students. However, Cho had never thought his behavior was because of his internal ‘beast’. Instead, he said ‘I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and defenseless people’ in the video message mailed to NBC News. He must have thought that he ‘Kills the beast! Cuts his throat! Spills his blood’ during his shooting.

Cho acted like the ‘tribe’ in ‘Lord of the flies’, or Roger more specifically, when the tribe kill Simon. The problem with the English professor who had read Cho’s dreadful drama script was that he was a ‘poor chess player’ like the leader, Ralph who fails to see the true human nature and to prepare for its potential devastating consequences. The hospital psychologist who had examined Cho’s mental problem before is like Simon who is intelligent enough to see that ‘the only beast in the island is in themselves’. His problem is however that he is not a good articulated communicator. The judge in Montgomery County District Court who ordered Cho undergo mental evaluation acted like Piggy who always wants everything in order. He also has the problem that he (or the law enforcement system) is very lazy.

Then, what could be a resolution of this problem? I believe we should admit that we are not flawless. All the wars that mankind have conducted or suffered from are merely projections of our faulty internal characteristics. In particular, the Virginia massacre could have been prevented if the possession of guns had been banned by law, even though that law would deny our individual freedom or right before the safety of the society.