Tucker,+S

Shaquiel Tucker Mrs. Mckee/Mrs. Poole English 11, p. 3 15 January 2010

Lord of the Flies

There are two sides of people in this world; the brutal savage side that doesn’t want to obey rules and the innocent civilized side that follows the rules. William Golding proves this in the novel Lord of the Flies he wrote in 1954. Ralph, Jack, and Piggy are three of the boys in this story, Ralph and Piggy gathered up all the boys on the island and Ralph and Jack compete for leadership. With no adults around to tell the kids what to do, the boys have to try and survive and two sides show from the different boys and it becomes a battle of civilization vs. savagery.

A plane crashes onto a remote while they were transporting choir boys from the harshness of WWII. Ralph and Piggy were together and they were searching for the rest of the boys. Piggy makes a plan to blow throw a shell like a trumpet to summon the boys to their location. Once the boys all meet up they elect a leader. It was between Jack and Ralph. Ralph wins the vote and he assigns each boy a job, he gave group of boys jobs to hunt food and some to explore the island. Later Ralph summons the boys and tells them there are no adults on the island and they need to make plans. Piggy was troubled that no one knew that they had crashed onto the island and all the boys got scared. A small boy claims to have seen a beast. Ralph makes a plan to make a signal fire on top of a mountain, so everyone rushes to the mountain and gathers wood to build up a fire, they all were acting like brutes trying to get the fire started and weren't being organized. Piggy repeatedly kept reminding the boys they need to act more proficiently if they want to get off the island but no one was listening to him. In the middle of their frenzy Piggy tells the boys that the little boy that claimed to have saw a beast has disappeared. After the boys heard the devastating news they pretended like nothing happened. Ralph keeps trying to get the boys to work but all they want to do is play and no work is getting done. He continuously complains about how they make plans and get all excited but no one is willing to do the work. Jack and Ralph have an argument about this, and simon is just strolling through the jungle alone relaxing in beautiful flower meadows. The younger boys kept having nightmares about the "beastie" and it becomes a huge epidemic. Jack obssesed with catching a pig, which he has yet to have done, pants his face with charcoal and dirt goes out hunting with nine other boys and it worked. Piggy then critisizes them and calls them immature and Jack slapped him in the face. Ralph calls a meeting, a boy claims to have actually seen the beast and Jack cheers on about if there is a beast him and his hunters will kill it. Jack harasses Piggy and runs off and everyone except Ralph, Simon, and Piggy are at the meeting. The boys that follow jack dance and chant. A little boy screams on the beach. An airplane battle was going on and a soldier on a parachute falls down onto the island, dead, and his shadow is big and scary and the signal fire watchers believe its the beast. They venture into the jungle to look for it. When they take a break the hunters were trying to catch a boar and a boy named robert was playing with it so they pretend like Robert is the boar and they begin chanting and dancing, and then they lost sight of what they were doing an began stabbing Robert with their spears and nearly killed him before they realized what they were doing. Simon goes off to look for the beast, Jack makes his own tribe and they have a feast and everyone is singing, dancing, and chanting, and when Simon returns they think he is the beast and all the boys rush over to him and rip him apart. Jack is the leader of his new clan and he is evil. He beats people for no reason and they stole Piggy's glasses, so now they can make fire. Ralph and Jack get into to fights as Ralph tries to make Jack see reason and tell him he is out of control. A boy throws a massive boulder down a hill Ralph dodges it but it crushes Piggy and kills him. Jack's tribe begin to throw spears at Ralph and he escapes into the jungle. Jack sets the jungle on fire to get Ralph to come out, Ralph runs toward the beach and when he arrives theres a naval officer standing before him, and the other boys arrive shortly after. The officer was shocked at what has happened to the boys and the boys cry in shame because of what has become of them.

All the events in the story relate to the theme "civilization vs. savagery." Ralph, Simon, and Piggy are the symobol of civilization and Jack and his followers are the symbol of savagery. Jack and his followers act like brutes when they are on the island.Killing and beating people for no reason. And all Ralph wants to do is keep order, while Simon and Piggy just want to help Ralph. But easily the civilisized part of Ralph and Piggy were overtaken by the excitement and they joined in on the chanting and dancing of Jacks tribe, while Jack sits back and watches and feels himself, and their savage actions end with the death of Simon. The boy who liked to just wonder and explore the island and looks at how beautiful it was. Ralph and Jack begin fighting over and over and then Piggy was killed. As Ralph escaped, Jack set an entire jungle a blaze, just to get Ralph to come out.

Lord of the Flies is a very mysterious and exciting read, i enjoyed it. Even though i would never kill anyone... but i can relate to the theme of this book. I know right from wrong, and i can follow rules fine but sometimes i lose track of things and then i get out of control and get off task of what i'm supposed to be doing and it doesnt result in anything positively usualy. Now im not a book kinda person but I found this book easy to read and pretty fun. And kind of makes you wonder what if that happened to you what would you do.