The Scrivener: Lord of the Flies - 1
…On the surface, this is a story about 30 boys who survive a plane crash after enemy attack, and find themselves on an isolated jungle-covered island. They divide into two main groups. Individuals become both perpetrators and victims of what follows when initial attempts at maintaining law and order break down. The story is more than an adventure — it is a very disturbing allegory…
Brian Barratt begins an eight-part series of articles on William Golding’s novel “Lord Of The Flies’’.
Golding, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, made it clear that the interpretation of what he wrote is up to each individual reader.
Brian’s words are sure to encourage the reading and re-reading of a book which. besides being a dramatic and entertaining tale, sharpens one’s understanding of the human species.
At the time of writing, the captains of eight Australian Rules football teams are running a TV campaign, calling for an end to alcohol-fuelled violence on the streets. That is a worthy aim but it is totally negated by the fact that violence is regularly displayed on the field in football matches. It is a feature of sports reports on commercial television news, in addition to news such as "Premiership player has appeared in court on criminal damage charges from drunken vandalism".
Alcohol; violence on television and in movies; lack of respect for community and society; removal of spiritual connections; inadequate education from schools and parents. These are all possible factors in the current "epidemic of violence", mentioned in a report on the work of one of Australia's leading neurosurgeons, who has to help the victims. Referring to the attackers, he suggests that there is "a mindset that primes them for violence".
William Golding, winner of a Nobel Prize for Literature, dealt with violence in his first book (1954), "Lord of the Flies". His approach did not pre-empt or contradict the words of the neurosurgeon but handled the "mindset" in a different way.
On the surface, this is a story about 30 boys who survive a plane crash after enemy attack, and find themselves on an isolated jungle-covered island. They divide into two main groups. Individuals become both perpetrators and victims of what follows when initial attempts at maintaining law and order break down. The story is more than an adventure — it is a very disturbing allegory.
In a publicity release prepared for his American publishers, William Golding explained the theme of his book as follows:
The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable.
There is still misunderstanding about the priorities of the story. Some academics, teachers and other writers on Internet websites would do well to listen to the words of William Golding himself. In his comments, on the Criterion Collection DVD of the film, he clearly states:
The most important thing said in the book is when Jack says 'Bollocks to the law. Why should we obey the rules?' and Ralph says, 'Because the rules are the only thing we've got.' That is what I suppose you could say is what the book is about. If you don't have rules, you don't have law, then you're lost, you're finished, you're gone.
The editors of the Criterion Collection edition itself show another type of misunderstanding, verging on ignorance, when in the sub-titles of the film's dialogue they reproduce the word "bollocks" as "bullocks". They also show the name of Percival Wemys Madison as Percival Williams Madison. One wonders if they actually read the book.
William Golding made it clear that the interpretation of what he wrote is up to each individual reader.
There have been so many interpretations of the story that I'm not going to choose between them. Make your own choice. They contradict each other, the various choices. The only choice that really matters, the only interpretation of the story, if you want one, is your own, not your teacher's, not you professor's, not mine, not a critic's, not some authority's.
Having already written that the novel is an allegory, I must now qualify that statement by saying that this is my interpretation as well as that of many others over that past 55 years. How it works as an allegory will be the subject of essays which follow in this series.
© Copyright Brian Barratt 2009
Sources
Brook, Peter, director, Lord of the Flies, 1963, DVD, Criterion Collection, 1999.
E.L. Epstein, Notes on Lord of the Flies by William Golding. New York, Berkley Publishing Group, 1954,
Golding, William, Lord of the Flies, Faber and Faber, London 1954. Also Penguin Books, London, 1960.
Miller, N., 'Young men's mindlessness starts at home: surgeon'. The Age, Melbourne, August 31, 2009.
http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/Golding.html#AuthorMeaning
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To read more of Brian’s entertaining and insightful columns please click on
http://www.openwriting.com/archives/the_scrivener/
And do visit his mind-bending Web site The Brain Rummager
www.alphalink.com.au/~umbidas/
