Lord of the Flies is a dystopian novel written by William Golding. To cut the plot short, the novel tells about a group of schoolboys who survived their plane crash on a desert island. At first they tried to survive and waited calmly to be rescued, but after a while they turned into savage people. Their life on the island wasn’t easy and the thoughts of a wild beast creeping in the night didn’t make it any easier.
During the time they waited to be rescued the group splits up into smaller tribes while their way of thinking is turning to the level of a caveman. Instead of doing things for common good they start to behave more self-centered. The theme of the book tells a lot about how easily we change our way of thinking, when it’s about life or death.
The book also tells in an awesome way about the feelings when you have no chance to do anything to solve a problem and about the difficulties when you have to co-operate with stubborn people who don’t see any other way of doing things. That’s also one of the reasons which creates the disastrous atmosphere on the island.
The main characters of the book are Ralph, Piggy and Jack. There are also other crucial and important people in the story, but the decisions of these three create the main path of the story. My favorite character was Ralph. At first Ralph seems to be an arrogant and mean person but his real, emotional and thoughtful personality is revealed as the story advances. During the time the group was on the island, he was the only one who cared and fought for common good whether he had energy or not.
Piggy, on the contrary, is a shy and overweighted boy who’s got asthma. Although Piggy seems to be a guy who doesn’t have the courage to say his thoughts out loud, he’s a very smart person who knows what to do and when. At first all the boys are insulting him but in the end Piggy and Ralph are those who stick together like best friends. I also think that Piggy’s mature way of understanding things effected Ralph’s acting positively.
Jack was a mysterious person. He was the leader of the choir boys but when all of the guys assembled for the first time and he lost the leader election to Ralph, he changed. At first he seemed to accept his defeat, but he was the first one who started to turn inhumane. He started to act really heartless against everything and everyone who didn’t accept his way to make something happen.
It was his fault, even though indirectly, that two of the boys died on the island. His behavior affected the guys who joined his tribe. Ralph, Piggy and all the other sensible guys hated him, me included.
The language of the book was understandable. Of course there where words I didn’t know but the most important thing was that the English wasn’t old with all its weird words and expressions. The narrator was omniscient and I don’t think that any other type of narrator would’ve fit the story. I liked the book very much. It was one of the best English novels I’ve ever read. I think I’m going to read more of Golding’s books, because his style of telling is nice, not too detailed, but so that the story remains interesting.