The Lord of the Flies..... Among Us?

 

     Putting a lot of hours in Far Cry3, the video game, it gives a really deep insight into man’s lapse into evil. It narrates a truly memorable story where the protagonist gets kidnapped with his friends in an island isolated from civilization, filled with savage pirates, native cults and mystical elements. As the story progresses, as he frees his friends one by one, he slowly gets indulged in an ecstasy of blood, violence and the euphoria of the ancient spirits of the jungle, where it reaches a point where he cannot return back to a normal life, living in a world of savage lunacy. Which neatly brings me along to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.

 

     The story is set up in an island where a group of kids ranging from around six to twelve years old crash land from an evacuation airplane from Britain. There are no adults and the children are left on their own to fend for themselves. Quickly leaders are assigned, commanding orders forming groups for division of labor. We have the elected leader, Ralph, his close friend Piggy, and the leader of the food gatherer, Jack. Life seems good, almost too good. They enjoy the beach, explore the island and play in the sand. However they soon ignore the orders given by Ralph. Jack gets obsessed with hunting so much so that he forgets his duties of lighting the signal fires. Soon Ralph’s speeches to restore order do not work anymore, creating a rift between the hunter tribe and the remaining kids. Soon the revelry ends up in rituals which start to scare the younger kids. Ralphs group grows thinner and thinner while now the kids have turned into complete savages, murder and violence. Will Ralph escape? Or shall he too turn into one of them? Read to find out!

 

       Reading the novel for the first time gave me almost the exact feeling that I had upon completing Orwell’s Animal Farm. The book depicts the great dread that lies deep down our consciousness. What happens during a crisis, where the need to survive strips down all our facades of culture and civilization? What then? Will we become savages just to survive, obeying the strongest figure among us?

 

     The novel is crafted intricately so as to show the reader the slow movement of childish innocence into barbarism. Amidst this we have the poet, Ralph trying in vain to defuse the situation, Piggy, the intellectual trying to rationalize the situation and Simon, the almost holy like figure who *spoilers* was brutally killed amidst the revelry of the tribes. Yes, you could call the novel an allegory of the impulses and limits of human consciousness. As the reader, you can only in hope as evil takes the better of the kids trapped in the island isolated from adults.

 

      Now I would like to speak about the idea of evil itself. The title Lord of the Flies is given to Beelzebub, one of the seven princes of Hell. There is a mention of an evil beast lurking in the shadows of the island in the novel that causes nightmares to the younger kids. However as Simon finds out, the beast wasn’t in the jungle but in the hearts of the children themselves, which acts as a sort of a foreshadowing to the tragic events yet to happen.

 

     Before I spoil the novel too much, lets move on a bit away from the novel. Many critics consider the novel to be a representation of World War II, Jack being the tyrant dictator himself. However reading the novel, it gave me an almost irrational fear of the true nature of humans itself. Surely, we poets will never be anyone anywhere close to Jack, right? But if it’s a case of life and death, up to what extend do we choose to keep our conscience clear?

 

      I shall conclude with another question that got me thinking, that is ‘herd mentality’, an idea put forward by French psychologist Gustave Le Bon. The idea is that humans have an innate tendency to follow the crowd, be it right or wrong for the sole reason not be the one left alone. Now in this novel (also in World War II) what could be the reason that made the children obey and follow the rules dictated by Jack? Surely one or two of them would have thought, no, I cannot be a savage like him, but ultimately forced into his cult, since there was not any other alternative and Ralph’s tribe was a sinking ship. Sad isn’t it. More worrying is that all these events are based on real life events.

 

So read the novel if you would fancy a couple of sleepless nights!

Until next time, poets…

Lan