The Lord of the Flies - "Breaking the Game" - by Jacobo Pastor

Jacobo Pastor

English 2/ Ms. Pahomov

March 31st, 2017

Breaking the Game

If you were to survive in an unknown environment, surrounded by dangers and threats, what type of decisions would you take? If the strong are battling to survive, why should they waste care and resources on the weak? Would fairness and justice prevail or would fear rule? What type of options would you have when your choices are limited and you lose your faith in mankind? Would you work together as a team or would you fight with one another? What type of leader would you follow? What limits would affect your actions and your leader’s ones? What would you consider a necessary evil or a good action? How does fear influence those situations? The book, The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding starts at the beginning of an unnamed war. A group of English schoolboys, ages six to 12, are being evacuated from their homes when their plane is shot down and crashes on a tropical island in the Pacific Ocean. From that moment on, the boys need to take all kind of decisions. One of the older boys, Ralph, takes control of the situation trying to organize the boys into a kind of productive, democratic society. Anyone can speak his mind and help the group come to a decision, as long as he's holding the conch, a large white seashell. Ralph symbolizes a civilized society. While Ralph is that, the other leader Jack symbolizes violence and anarchy. This book symbolizes today’s society, where they discover that power can justify any action they take, now matter how cruel it might be, causing disagreement amongst their civilization. The actions and decisions they take will define the way they all live.

Since the first chapters Ralph tries to organize the boys into a kind of productive, democratic society. In their first meeting, when they are establishing the rules that should be followed, Jack brings up the punishment topic. Immediately Ralph makes sure to stop his intentions. "We will have rules! he cried excitedly. Lots of rules! Then when anyone breaks' em-" (33). With just a couple of words, Jack has brought up a controversy between effectiveness versus humanity. Our society balances both of those, trying to get something that can maintain the stability of a civilization while at the same time comforting human rights. Jack believes that being effective is much more important that being humane.

This moment can be related to a famous speech given by Francisco Franco, the first and last Spanish dictator, to all the communist who lost the Spanish civil war and were supposed to surrender and repent. In his speech, he revealed all his power as a dictator with just a couple words, "And those who don't follow as I say will be crashed as worms." Rules are something that should be followed because they support and bring cohesion to society. Just as it is not rational to milk a cow till it gives its last drop of milk, rules should be treated with respect, not because someone is dictating you to do so. William Golding depicts Jack as a dictator, representing the total opposite of what our Western society believes nowadays, where anyone can speak his mind and help the group to come to a decision. On the other side Jack, the leader of the savages, believes that as members of a primitive tribe, death and suffering are natural ways to survive and rule. Following his line of thought, if he is the most violent among the rest he is necessarily the leader to follow.

In the last few chapters Jack took over the whole island with his group of savages, breaking all the rules and agreements the boys had. One of his actions was to steal Piggy’s glasses to make a fire and cook the pig he had just killed. Piggy did not believe that that should be a way to behave. He later convinced his friend and former leader, Ralph, to discuss with him this unfairness. When they get there they had nothing to do, because Jack had an army that will kill for him. “They do what I want,” Jack states. “I am the chief” (179). Jack is also a particular sadist chief. “I don’t know. He didn’t say. He got angry and made us tie Wilfred up. He’s been” – he giggled excitedly – “tied for hours, waiting” (159), tells Robert about the orders of Jack and his submission to him. Power has corrupted Jack and has made him think that his actions are all necessary. This moment of the book can be related with the thoughts of Francisco Franco. As he once said, “I am only responsible for God and history”. In this quote Franco has also been corrupted by power and believes that as the supreme leader, he would only need to justify his actions in front of God and history books. Both of those quotes make the reader feel that no only power has corrupted their thoughts but also their need for more power. The more actions they take, the worst the next one will be. As temperature rises, their bad actions do too but without a clear result on what those would look like. It’s the fear of the unknown that keeps people scared, because they do not know what will would happen to them.

"It's the things that have crawled out of their own bones and their own veins, they don't know whether it's a beast from the sky, air, or where it's coming, but there is something terrible about it as the conditions of existence.” Said William Golding in a 1959 BBC radio interview describing the “beast” and its meaning. The Lord of the Flies, is literally the head of a pig that has been killed by Jack’s tribe and left as an offering to the island’s mysterious “beast.” What in Hebrew means Beelzebub, demon in English. In other terms, it symbolizes the “beast” that it’s inside in every good man. The boy’s belief in the beast is a tipping point in the boy's' journey from civilisation to base, primitive, human instinct. This is a good indication of the author’s purpose and a direct reference to the growing presence of evil in the characters and their transformation into unhuman beings. The good time was so short, and then human nature starts to assert itself, and their society descends into antagonism, hostility and violence. Only at the very end, we see the young kids back in the story when they are confronted by the presence of an adult- the navy in their rescue. Then is when we came to realize they were only 12 years old buy yet they behaved like the most cruel adults in the real world.

In conclusion, the abuse of power seen in the, Lord of the Flies, gives birth to an inside beast that is nothing more that themselves making them do cruel life decisions just to maintain that power or superiority between other people. The truth about this book and the real meaning that William Golding wants to represent, is to realize that when groups of people are clinging to life, the greatest threat may be not the environment, starvation or dehydration, but the other survivors standing next to them on a deserted town, beach, road, mountain.

Works Cited:

Golding, William. Lord Of The Flies. New York: Penguin, 2006.

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