Exposition - Lord of the flies

The first lines of the novel

‘’The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way towards the lagoon. Though he had taken off his school sweater and trailed it now from one hand, his grey shirt stuck to him and his hair was plastered to his forehead. All round him the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat.’’

The first three lines did not really appeal to me in an instance. By these three lines you can figure out that the book is about a schoolboy who is lost somewhere, and you kind of sense that the novel will be some kind of adventure.

The plot

The novel Lord of the flies is written by William Golding. In the very beginning of the novel you get to know that it is about two boys who have survived a plane crash and also that they are stranded on a deserted island. The boys are British, and soon they find a conch that they use to create a sound to call some other boys that they have seen on the island. The boys that arrive to them aged 6 to about 12 years old.

The boys decide that they need to have a leader, since there are no adults. They decide to vote whether Ralph or Jack should be the leader, and Ralph end up winning the vote since he was the one that brought them all together. At first, the boys are not sure whether they are on an island or not, and therefor Ralph and two other boys, Jack and Simon go around the island to find out. After they find out that they are on an island the boys go back to the others and decide that they have to make a fire and keep it going at all times so that they can get rescued in case a ship sails by the island. One day a ship sails by the island, but it does not see the boys due to the fire being out. When this happens Ralph freaks out and call the boys too another assembly.

Main characters

The two main characters in the book are Ralph and Piggy. The boys are around the same age, and I would guess they are both approximately twelve years old.

Piggy is often described as fat in the book. Piggys real name is not Piggy, but the boys calls him that after he tells Ralph that he was called Piggy at his old school, and that he really didn’t like it. He then asks Ralph not to tell anyone, but Ralph gladly tells everyone anyway. I get the feeling that Piggy hasn’t had an easy life. He doesn’t have any parents, and he lives with his aunt. He also has asthma, and really bad sight, and gets bullied at school. Despite this, Piggy seams like a really caring person. He is the one who asks everyone about their names, and when a little boy is too shy too speak up in front of the group, Piggy encourage and helps him.

After a voting, Ralph receives the leader role of the whole group. Ralph is a typical leader, who can catch and keep the groups interest while he is speaking. Ralph tries to give the impression of him being strong and a good leader. He tries to act tough and cool, but you can tell he is probably really scared and insecure. Ralph is also a bully, who likes to be mean too Piggy, but although he is a bully, sometimes it feels like he tries to be nice too the boys and make the best of the situation for all of them. I feel like he is the one that is most eager to get the boys rescued from the island.

The title

The title Lord of the flies is a quite interesting title, and I think the title catch the readers attention. After only reading a third of the book, I am not sure why the book is called that, bur I assume it is because Ralph is the lord since he is the leader, and that all the other boys are the flies, since they act a little animal-like.