Lord of the Flies

            I am currently reading the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding. This book is about a group of young boys who’s plane crashes onto a deserted island and leaves them alone with no parental guidance. Some of these boys are as young as 6 years old and are quite clueless as to what happened or how to get back to England. As they struggle to survive under these new circumstances, they fight with the weather, their fear, and most of all each other.

            There are a lot of conflicts in this book. The most obvious conflict is that they are stranded. They are young, and don’t entirely know how to survive. There are pigs on the island and after must hesitating, one boy Jack is finally able to kill one. Many of the younger kids cannot deal with the new lifestyle and don’t help the others much. Ralph—the boy elected as the leader—is trying to help as much as he possibly can, but a bit powerless until someone comes to save them. There is also a conflict of power. Jack seems to want control of the group, but the group likes Ralph better.

            Most of the characters are struggling with internal conflicts as well. The boys all want to be saved and many of them are confused why this happened or where the pilot went once the plane crashed. Although I am only a little bit into the book, I think that these conflicts within the group will not really be mended until they get saved. Even if they are able to make the best of eating off pig and fruit all their lives without parents, the author makes it very clear that they all just want to go home and be in the presence of adults again.

            The boys have decided that they need to have power in their group, and elect Ralph as president. I think that this is a bad idea. They probably decided to do this because they wanted some authority, however I think that this will just get other people angry and make it seem like Ralph has most power than some of the other kids on the island. I think that they need to join together to get things done, and not make some people feel bad or useless. There is one character—Piggy—that Jack and his friends make fun of because he is fat. I think that this is a bad thing that they are doing because they need everyone’s help to survive on this island, and turning others against them will not help anyone.