Peripety – Lord of the Flies

The peripety

Jack and Ralph have always had their disagreements. Although they sometimes have been good to each other and got along very well, it has been very tense between them and there have been many conflicts between the two of them throughout the book. They have quarreled and hurt one another. However, it is not until Jack decides to leave the group and form his own group, where he is the boss, that they become real enemies.

The younger boys have always talked about a dangerous beast that they have seen during the nights. The boys are afraid that the beast will harm them. They describe the monster's form and they say that the beast is very nasty. Ralph and Jack tells them that there is no monster, but just in case, they choose to go into the woods and see if there really is a beast. Darkness falls, and Ralph proposes that they should wait until morning to climb the mountain, because it will be difficult to hunt the monster at night. In addition, he is scared of the beast. However, Jack does not care about the darkness and what Ralph wants to do. Instead, he tells Ralph to continue the hunt. Ralph, Jack and another guy, named Roger, start to climb the mountain. Then, Ralph and Roger wait somewhere near the top while Jack climbs alone to the summit. Jack returns, breathlessly claiming to have seen the monster. Ralph and Roger climb up to have a look and they see something that looks really strange. Horrified, the boys hurry down the mountain to warn the other boys. The next morning, Jack tells the others that there is definitely a beast on the mountain and that Ralph is a big coward who should not be the leader anymore, but some of the other children do not agree with him. Enraged, Jack leaves the group, saying that anyone who would like to is welcome to join him. All the hunters and some of the other boys, chooses to go with him. He becomes the chief of the group. I consider this to be the turning-point of the novel, because after this, everything changes. Ralph and Jack, who previously could stay good friends even though they had their problems, now become mortal enemies. They can not tolerate each other. Jack does many bad things to Ralph and his followers. For example, Jack and his hunters attack Ralph and the boys in his group. Moreover, Jack tries to persuade Ralph’s followers to join his group. Furthermore, Jack and Ralph fights and they say mean things to each other. As soon as Jack storms away from the group, their behavior towards each other changes radically. That is why I think that is the turning-point of the novel.

The ending

In the end of the novel, Piggy dies and all the boys in Ralph's group start to follow Jack so that Ralph is left alone. Jack decides to send the entire tribe after Ralph. Ralph hides from the boys, but is forced to flee when he smells smoke. Apparently, Jack has set the jungle on fire so that Ralph is forced to run out of the woods. Ralph abandons his hiding place and fights his way past Jack and his hunters. Chased by a group of angry boys, Ralph tries to find a place to hide. At last, he ends up on the beach, where he collapses in exhaustion. The others are close behind him. All of the sudden, Ralph looks up and sees a naval officer standing over him. The officer tells Ralph that he has come to the island, because he saw a blazing fire in the jungle. After a while, Jack’s hunters reach the beach and they stop when they see the officer. Ralph explains to the officer what has happened. He is overwhelmed by the knowledge that he has been rescued, that he will escape the island after coming so close to a violent death. Ralph and all the other boys behind him, begins to sob. The naval officer turns his back so that the boys can calm down.

I thought that the end of the novel was perfect. I would not have wanted it to end in any other way. It was a really good ending, because the boys were finally rescued from the island where they had been trapped for a very long time. Nevertheless, I find it a little funny that the boys needed to burn up the jungle in order to be rescued from the island.

The title

The Lord of the Flies is a bloody, chopped pig's head that Jack impales on a stick and leaves in the jungle as an offering to the beast. The head is soon rotting and covered with flies. One day, when Simon, one of the boys, is walking in the forest, he sees the pig's head. Simon confronts the pig's head and it seems to speak to him, telling him that evil lies within every human heart. In this way, Lord of the Flies is a symbol of evil and it is something that evokes the beast within every human being. We can for example see that every character in the book has an evil side that becomes worse over time. Both Jack and Ralph obviously has an evil side, given what has been written about these guys before. In addition, all the other boys have a little bit of evil that lies within them. This is why I think that the author chose that title for the novel.

The message

I believe that the message that the author is trying to convey is that we should not judge other people, because we all have our flaws. Nobody is perfect. Everybody has an evil, lazy, violent, irresponsible and selfish side that is shown during tough times. It is during difficult times and extreme circumstances, that the beast inside every person is released. Even the nicest person would for instance, during a war, use violence and kill others to survive.

Conflicts – Lord of the Flies

External conflicts

There are several different conflicts in the book Lord of the Flies. There are both external and internal conflicts. To begin with, there is a conflict between Ralph and Jack that starts when all the boys are voting on whether Jack or Ralph should be the leader of the group. When Ralph is chosen as the boss of the group, Jack feels powerless. The only reason to why Jack wants to be the leader is because he feels the need to have power. He needs to have control over others and he wants everyone to obey him. He does not really care about the other boys. The only thing he cares about is to have power and to go hunting for pigs to get some meat. Ralph, on the other hand, is the total opposite. He cares about the other children and he truly wants to help the others. He does everything in his power to help them to be rescued from the island. He has different ideas on how they can be discovered by boats that passes by. For example, by making a fire. You can say that Jack is a bit like a dictator, while Ralph is more like a democrat. The other boys look up to Ralph, and this makes Jack jealous of him. He is jealous of the power that Ralph has as a leader. The tension between the boys is there all the time. There is a conflict between the two of them. A conflict that develops for each day that passes by and becomes even bigger when a ship passes the island and the people on the boat can not see the signal, the smoke from the fire, because the fire has burned out. Ralph becomes very angry with Jack, because it was Jack's and all the other hunters' responsibility to ensure that the fire did not burn out, but instead, Jack chose to go and hunt. They start to argue and scream at each other.

Ralph spoke.

‘You let the fire out.’

Jack checked, vaguely irritated by this irrelevance but too happy to let it worry him.

‘We can light the fire again. You should have been with us, Ralph. We had a smashing time. The twins got knocked over –‘

‘We hit the pig –‘

‘- I fell on top –‘

‘I cut the pig’s throat,’ said Jack, proudly, and yet twitched as he said it. […]

‘There was lashings of blood,’ said Jack, laughing and shuddering, ‘you should have seen it!’

‘We’ll go hunting every day –‘

Ralph spoke again, hoarsely. He had not moved.

‘You let the fire out.’

This repetition made Jack uneasy. He looked at the twins and then back at Ralph.

‘We had to have them in the hunt,’ he said, ‘or there wouldn’t have been enough for a ring.’

He flushed, conscious of a fault.

‘The fire’s only been out an hour or two. We can light up again –‘ […]

’You should have seen the blood!’ […]

Ralph flung back his hair. One arm pointed at the empty horizon. His voice was loud and savage, and struck them into silence.

’There was a ship.’ […]

Ralph brought his arm down, fist clenched, and his voice shook.

’There was a ship. Out there. You said you’d keep the fire going and you let it out!’ He took a step towards Jack who turned and faced him.

’They might have seen us. We might have gone home –’ […]

’I was chief; and you were going to do what I said. You talk. But you can’t even build huts – then you go off hunting and let out the fire –’ […]

’There was a ship –’ […]

Jack went very red as he hacked and pulled at the pig. (s. 74)

This dialogue between Jack and Ralph is a clear example of an external conflict. Ralph becomes very angry with Jack for letting the fire burn out. He becomes annoyed with him, because all Jack cares about is to go and hunt for pigs. Jack becomes very angry with Ralph, because Ralph constantly repeats that he let the fire burn out. Furthermore, Ralph screams at him, but Jack does not care about what Ralph has to say to him. He wants to continue to chase pigs.

Internal conflicts

All the boys on the island are fighting with internal conflicts, because they are all in a situation of high pressure and stress. They are all struggling to survive and be rescued from the island. I think that all the boys are afraid, because they are not sure what will happen to them. However, I do believe that the one with the greatest internal conflict is Ralph, because he is the leader of the group. That means that he has a big responsibility. Ralph is the one who makes all the decisions. In addition, he is the one who comes up with ideas. For example, that the boys should make a fire, so that a ship that passes by can see that there is someone on the island. He does everything in his power to make sure that the boys will be rescued from the island. He really believes that they will be saved, but at the same time, he struggles with the thought that they might never be rescued. Sometimes he looks out at the vast expanse of water, and he feels that the ocean is like an impenetrable wall that is blocking any hope that the boys have of escaping the island. He feels confused. He does not really know what to believe. This is a good example of an internal conflict.

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.

These are the three first sentences of the novel. The first lines do not really catch my interest, because they do not tell me a lot about what will happen in the book. According to me, there is nothing interesting mentioned in those lines that makes me want to continue reading the book.

After having read the first sentences of the book, I do not know what will happen in the novel or what to expect from it. The only thing that these three sentences tells me, is that the book is about a boy who goes to school, and that this boy is lost somewhere in the jungle. Therefore, I do have a feeling that the book is going to be about something adventurous.

The Plot

The book Lord of the Flies is written by William Golding. In the beginning of the novel, we are introduced to two British boys, Ralph and Piggy, who has survived a plane crash, and they are now stranded on an uninhabited island. There were also other schoolboys from Britain on the plane. However, Ralph and Piggy do not know how many they were, what happened to them or where on the island they might be. They were separated from the other students after the incident. While Ralph and Piggy discuss what to do next, they find a conch, a shell. They use it to call the other boys, by blowing into it. When Ralph blows the conch, one child after another appears among the palms. Some of the boys are six years old and others are about 12 years old. When all the boys are gathered, they feel that they need to collaborate with each other in order to survive on the island, since there are no grown-ups. They decide to vote for a chief, someone who will lead the whole group and make all the decisions. The boys have to decide between Ralph and another boy named Jack. Ralph wins the election and therefore, he becomes the leader of the group. Furthermore, the boys agree on several rules that they must follow, in order to not create any problems. For example, only the person who is holding the conch, is allowed to speak. All the other ones must be quiet.

The boys are desperate to be rescued. If a ship comes near the island, the people on the ship may not notice the boys. They feel that it is necessary to make smoke on top of the mountain. They make a fire by building a pile of wood and then they use Piggy’s spectacles to light the fire. Jack and his group are responsible for keeping the fire going. In addition, Ralph appoints Jack to be in charge of the boys who will hunt food for the entire group. Jack and his group are the ones who have to go and hunt for pigs to get meat.

One day, there is a ship that sails by the island. However, the people on the ship can not see the boys on the island, because the fire has burned out. Ralph becomes furious, because it is the hunters’ responsibility to maintain the fire, but instead, they are out in the woods, hunting for pigs. Ralph decides to call the boys to a meeting.

Characters

There are many characters in the book. The two main characters are two British boys called Ralph and Piggy. These boys are about the same age, approximately twelve years old.

Ralph

Ralph is a boy with fair hair. He is the first guy that we are introduced to in the book. He receives the role of a leader of the group after a voting. This means that he has the responsibility to make sure that everything goes well and he is the one who makes all the decisions. He is very brave and versed in his role as a chief. He is not afraid to take charge or tell someone if they are doing something wrong. He is a strong person, but at the same time, I think he is very scared inside, but he does not dare show his fear to anyone now that he has become the leader of the group. He is also a kind and positive person, because he is constantly saying to the other boys that they will be rescued and that they should not worry about anything. This shows that he cares about others. Although he is caring, I think that he is a little mean, because he treats Piggy bad and is cruel to him. For instance, he sometimes tells him to shut up, and that is mean.

Piggy

Piggy is described in the novel as a fat boy, with thick glasses. He has been wearing spectacles since he was three years old. Furthermore, he has asthma. When Piggy was a little boy, his father died and we are not told what happened to his mother. Piggy used to live with his auntie. In my opinion, Piggy is a really nice person, because he does not swear and do not start a fight with someone else. Moreover, he is the only one who asks all the boys what their name is. I feel a little bit sorry for Piggy, because all the other boys are so mean to him. They pick on him and call him Piggy, even though it is not his real name. He does not like to be called Piggy, but they still call him that. They also call him Fatty. Piggy is very hurt by this and wants them to stop. However, nobody cares what he thinks or wants. They just laugh at him and tell him to shut up.

The title

The title of the novel Lord of the Flies, did not quite catch my interest. I am not sure why the author has chosen that title and I can not find any evidence in the text of why the writer chose it. I guess that he chose that name, because Ralph is the lord, since he is the leader of the group, and all the other children are the flies. Ralph is the lord of the flies.

Reading Log 3: Brave New World

The Turning Point

As I see it there are two events in the novel that could be considered to be turning points, one for each of the protagonists, Bernard and John. The common factor between these events is that they are both life changing for the characters.

The first turning point, Bernard’s, is when John refuses to attend one of his parties. After bringing John back from the reservation Bernard has gained respect and he is no longer judged as an outsider. Obviously, this has helped his confidence and for once he feels wanted and powerful. However, the instant John refuses obey Bernard’s all that he has gained is lost and he goes back to being a “nobody”. If this would not have happened I do not believe that the novel would have developed as it did, therefore I think it is a turning point.

The second one, John’s, occurs when his mother Linda dies. At the time of her death he is absolutely devastated. However, as he grief the rest of society and its residents remain indifferent to her death. They act like they do not care at all, some might even have been relieved when she passed, as she was the direct opposite to how the people of the new world were supposed to be. The indifference and the lack of empathy make John blame society for her death. This eventually leads to his own, Bernard’s and Helmholtz’s arrest and consequently affects the continuation of the novel gravely. 

The Ending

In the end, as I mentioned above, John, Bernard and Helmholtz are arrested due to John’s mental breakdown after his mother passes. During which he eagerly share his opinion about society with a room full of people as he throws their soma out through the window. Consequently they are all brought to the office of Mustapha Mond. At the office Mond answers all the questions that John has about society; why it works the way it does etc.  Moreover Bernard and Helmholtz are exiled to an island because of their irrational way of thinking. At the island they will live alongside likeminded people who do not think the way the controllers want them to. This sounds very compelling to John who is sick of the world he is forced to live in and he therefore begs Mond to exile him as well, however Mond won’t let him. As desperation grows within him, John tries to escape society and its scrutinizing eyes but fleeing to the countryside. Even so, there is no escape for him and as a result he commits suicide.

In one way I really like the ending of the novel, Mustapha Mond finally answered a lot of the questions I had when I read. In addition I believe that even though the ending for John might be tragic his dead was the thing that tied everything together in the end, his dead was necessary for the novel. In spite of these facts I feel like there are a lot of characters that does not really have an ending, but simply disappears gradually throughout the end. For instance Lenina is a rather important character in the beginning and the middle of the novel, but after the incident with John she just disappeared. Although I realise that she might not be that important for the continuation of the novel after that I still feel as if it would have been nice to know what happened to her.

The Title

In my first reading log I thought that the title Brave New World might have been chosen because the author Huxley presented a view of the future, which was rather radical and different. This was, in my opinion, a brave act, hence Brave New World. I still believe that this might be the main reason for him to choose it, however I was a bit confused when I realised that the title is, in fact, a quote from a Shakespeare play. The protagonist, John, who is a huge Shakespeare enthusiast, quotes the part containing Brave New World on several occasions in the novel. Even so I believe the title is connected to the society and the world presented in the novel, since it is my belief that John, when he quotes Shakespeare, uses the quote as a way of expressing how he feels about the society and the world that he is forced to live in.

The Message

The novel was written in the 1930s and as I see it, it is possible that Huxley felt as if our society was on its way to develop into the one that is described in the novel. Therefore he could have written it as a warning to us, that this is what is going to happen if we continue living the way we are currently doing, of course he might have exaggerated a bit to make it even more powerful. Nevertheless I believe that the message is clear; we should appreciate all the things the majority of us take for granted today, such as genuine feelings and freedom of though as well as freedom of speech.