Lord of the Flies

The book that I read was the Lord of the Flies by William Golding. The plot of the story revolves around the story of a few British boys stranded on an island after a plane crash. They elect a leader whose name is Ralph. He tries to come up with a few plans to govern the others. However, there is another person who goes against the rules and his name is Jack. Jack wanted to create a tribe of himself. He consolidated all the other boys to create a clan that mainly focused on their instinct, hunting. On the other hand, a boy nicknamed Piggy thinks from a more practical point of view. He and Ralph try to work together to sustain a signal fire that would at least give them a chance of survival. Unfortunately, Jack thinks that the slim chance of surviving was negligible and did not want to work together but decided to go hunting instead. In the end, Ralph’s only ally, Piggy dies after one of Jack’s tribe members kill him. Ralph is then forced to move across the island with no place of refuge and the constant terrorism of Jack’s tribe.
The structure of the plot embodies a deeper meaning. It is that there is a fine line between peace and pandemonium. Without a proper governing body, a place would not be able to run smoothly. In a society, there has to be people who base their lives on reason and those on instinct. Reason helps to run a certain place logically and gets things done properly. Instinct allows for a higher chance of survival such as hunting. All in all, the most important thing here is moderation. Everything must be done in moderation. Too much or too little of a certain thing and the results could be catastrophic.


Brendan Tan
Jh103