Peripety Lord of the flies

The peripety

The most significant turning point in Lord of the flies is when Jack and Ralph decides to go separate ways. Jack wants nothing more than to have fun and hunt, and Ralph wants to be rescued and believes that in order to be rescued they need to have rules and follow them. This is the main reason that the boys choose to go separate ways. The separation leads to a feast thrown by Jack and his hunters, and during this feast the boys kill a boy named Simon, due to them thinking he was the beast that they had been afraid of for a long time. The murder changes a lot in the novel, and the incident makes the boys realise that they are not on a vacation where they can just mess around and have fun. This also makes the boys think more about the situation.

The ending

All the boys have left Ralph to be with Jack, and Simon and Piggy are dead. All the boys are hunting Ralph, and they are about to kill him when an officer finds them. All the boys stop doing what they where doing, and starts to cry from relief. They realise what they have done.

I think that the ending of the novel is really good. I am satisfied that Ralph isn´t killed, and that the officer rescues the boys. The ending also leaves you wondering what would of happened if the officer didn’t show up, or if he had shown up five minutes later. Maybe Ralph would have been killed, or maybe some of the other boys would have been killed?

The title

In the beginning of the novel I thought that the title of the book represented Ralph as the lord and al the other boys as the flies since Ralph was named the leader by the other boys. After reading the whole novel I am pretty sure that Jack is the lord, and that the other boys are the flies. Although another reason for the name could be what Simon sees during his hallucinations. While hallucinating Simon sees flies eat from a severed pig head that Jack and his hunters has left behind.

The message

I believe that the message of the novel is that in order for a society to be able to function there has to be an appropriate amount of ground rules. I also think that the message of the novel is that no one is perfect, and that anything can happen to a person’s behaviour in extreme circumstances. You do not know how you will react in some circumstances, until you have experienced them yourself.