William Golding's Lord of the Flies explores what would happen if a group of young boys were left to govern themselves alone. A plane crash strands a group of children on an island. They later realize that the group consists of only boys.
There are a few reasons why the author may have chosen to use only boys. From the writers perspective, it might make the plot and the character's relationships with one another simpler. This allows more room to focus on the main themes instead of the characters relationships. Or, because William Golding is a boy, maybe it was just that he understood the nature of boys better. Whatever the reason, the book is written with boys in mind, and some aspects of the story would change if there were girls on the island instead.
Imagine, you are stranded on a far away island. There are no adults or authority figures. What do you do first? Do you explore the island looking for civilization? Do you look for drinking water and food?
Ralph and Piggy took off their clothes. They stripped down and went swimming. (Golding 12) Priorities. They were startled with the sudden freedom away from adults. So when they realized they could do anything, they didn't even think about survival or rescue, they went to play.
When they realized that there were no adults, they weren't concerned for the adult's safety or their own, they celebrated and cheered. "In the middle of the scar he stood on his head and grinned at the reversed fat boy. 'No grownups!'" (Golding 8).
But would a group of girls really act any differently? I think that they would generally be a little less wild but still want to take advantage of the freedom. I don't think that either group would do better, they would just create different obstacles for themselves. The boys focused too much on hunting, maybe the girls would focus too much on rescue.
After the boys swam, they gathered the entire group together, using a conch shell they found. There were no formal rules about the conch, but the boys continued to listen to it throughout the story. The boys enjoyed the freedom of the island, but they still chose to have structure, and accept some rules.
During meetings, only the person holding the conch shell was allowed to speak. This rule was also followed even when inconvenient for the boys. There was no established consequence for rule breaking, but it still rarely happened. "'The rules!' shouted Ralph. 'You're breaking the rules!' 'Who cares?' Ralph summoned his wits. 'Because the rules are the only thing we've got!'" (Golding 91) This is because the boys still needed some type of structure in their little society.
Having too little or too many rules can pose lots of problems. Books with dystopian societies often have, very simply, too many rules and not enough freedom. In The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the citizens have little freedom. They are born into very poor towns. Everyone has to put their life in danger once a year and citizens are killed freely. The lack of freedom starts a rebellion. We need rules, but there is an important balance that needs to be found with some rules, but not too many.
One of the rules that the boys accept is that Ralph is their elected leader. I thought it was interesting how they picked the leader. "None of the boys could have found good reason for this (picking Ralph); what intelligence had been shown was traceable to Piggy... but there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out." (Golding 22) The boys picked Ralph mostly because he had the conch shell. They acknowledged that Piggy was smarter, but they didn't really even consider anyone but Ralph.
They had pretty much ruled out Piggy even before the vote. "'He's not Fatty,' cried Ralph, 'his real name's Piggy!'... A storm of laughter arose and even the tiniest child joined in. For a moment the children were a closed circuit of sympathy with Piggy outside: he went very pink, bowed his head, and cleaned his glasses again." (Golding 20). Even throughout the book as the boys got more and more conflicted they agreed on one thing. Everyone made fun of Piggy.
They bonded over being mean. The only person that was ever really nice to Piggy was Ralph, but only when the two were alone. Ralph couldn't show this weakness, or be friendly when the group could see. Piggy had most of the good ideas for the group but got credit for none of them.
He was also called by the name he hated. Piggy is not only an insulting name, it also dehumanizes him in a way, this makes it easier for the rest of the group to kick him around.
Moral of the story, twelve year old boys are not to be trusted and boys are odd. Told you.
***There are lots of generalizations in here. It's meant, for simplicity, to represent the genders very stereotypically. It's a bit inaccurate but way simpler. sorry.
I love your introduction, Naomi. Wonderful. You do a great job transitioning from an attention-getter to your main point in a way that is easy to read and very complete.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your look at both gender roles and the idea of losing civilization in this post. You make compelling claims and support them with great examples from the novel.
You cite the examples well, which is a super bonus.
Once again, Naomi, outstanding work. I appreciate the work ou do on these blogs so much.