The Criterion Collection DVD provides a audiotrack which consists of Golding reading from and commenting on his novel. I listened to it for the first time last night, and three things that Golding said caught my attention:

• TS Eliot chose the title.

• The conch could represent the rule of law and the democratic process. Golding thinks he might have gotten it from Homer, but he isn't sure.

• Readers should interpret the novel

  any way they want.

The Criterion DVD is only available as a Region 1/NTSC; the Region 2/PAL disc doesn't seem to have it. I assume the track is taken from the audiobook, but I don't know if the comments are included in that.

Martin - Rites of Passage won the Booker in 1980, so I assume you have it. Have you read it?

To answer your question re this being such an "English" book. I grew up on the East Coast of the US in the Fifties, where there were many preparatory schools, modeled on the English school systems, loosely. Children of the so called "better" families were sent away to "prep" schools, some of which go back a couple of centures, espec. in New England. Supposedly, the products of these schools carried a "veneer" of civilized behavior, good manners, etc. as opposed to those unfortunates who were stuck in public schools in the US. But yes, I could easily imagine the boys in Golding's novel as being students at a New England prep school.

For an example of life in a US prep school, see John Knowles' wonderful novel, " A Separate Peace", and "Peace Breaks Out."

OTOH, many Americans do tend to think of the English as the penultimate in refinement and proper, subdued manners, perhaps ignoring the feet of clay....

Piggy's eyeglasses did not bother me as I am not knowledgeable about details such as that.

As an aside, William Golding was writer-in-residence while I was a student at University here in Virginia in the Sixties. I regret not having listened to his lectures, but I was not an English major.

I have a question about Simon's "visions".The scene where Simon is having a dialogue with a "Beast", a "pig's head on a stick", etc. Then Simon fell down, unconscious. Are we meant to think that Simon has a form of epilepsy and is having fits??? What is your interpretation?

Mary, their are a couple of passages in LotF where Simon realises he is going to have a fit "He knew one of his times had come" when he hears the Lord of the Flies (the pigs head) talking to him. At the beginning the other members of the choir say how he has already 'fainted' a number of times.

I had never read this book before, or seen the film probably because I don't enjoy the subject of man's (or boys) inhumananity to man.

It took me a little while to get over the whys and wherefores and 'facts' of the story.
I worked out that the story probably takes place at the end of, or soon after WWII, but couldn't understand why this group of boys would be travelling over the Pacific Ocean by plane.
As Martin says they seem to come from what we would call a 'public school' background, and the 'choir' know each other. The odd one out both because of his fatness and his lower social standing is Piggy. I wonder if this is obvious to people from the US?

Later it occured to me there was no point in wondering about these details as Golding wanted to set his boys down in a place not easily accessible to the outside world, so they wouldn't be rescued too quickly and they needed to be somewhere with a ready supply of food and water but with no adults close at hand to take control of events.

As far as differences in behaviour go I'm sure all children in those days would have reacted in a simiar way, although maybe Golding used the public school 'type' because in real-life these were the boys he would have been most familiar with as a teacher and they were then considered to be the future generation of 'leaders of men'.
So we are given Ralph, who is surely the nearest thing to a hero, the odious Jack who seems to represent the tough, amoral but often most admired type . . . and Piggy.
Did Golding introduce this boy to be the butt of their jokes? Do they need a fat boy to mock? He is obviously intelligent and able to sum-up situations quickly and face up to realities.
Is Golding using Piggy as 'the man on the Clapham Omnibus' the everyman/man in the street?
These are just thoughts. I'm sure there are lots of things I would like to ask later.

I read this book several times on my own as a high school student in the early 60s. It would never have been assigned in many schools at that time--too controversial and edgy--and certainly not in the private girls' school I attended. But everyone with any interest in the larger questions of life read and discussed it heatedly.

I never thought of it as an "English" book. It could have been any group of young people from anywhere. Even the gender issue was irrelevant to me when I read it, perhaps because it is well documented that girls read boys' books but boys will usually not touch a book with a girl or girls as protagonist.

Like many of my generation, I was deeply into books about the collapse of civilization as we knew it. Lord of the Flies. Animal Farm. 1984. Brave New World. Alas, Babylon. On the Beach. Etc, etc. We had been suckled on the horrors of our parents' war, WW2, and grew up with the Bomb over our heads and our futures. Perhaps that real threat made such literature all the more vivid and expressive of a very possible future to us.

Nonetheless, as a Christian and an optimist, I could not accept the rapid degeneration into violence and degradation that is portrayed in Lord of the Flies when I first read it in high school. But as a freshman in college, I had a boyfriend who was English. He was a graduate of King's College, Cambridge, and over here doing graduate work. We had many an intense and memorable conversation. One day, arguing about Lord of the Flies, I said to him, "I just don't buy it." I have never forgotten his reply: "In a world that produced Hitler, how can you not?" I had no answer then and I don't now.

I, too, read LOTF many times over the years but not recently, and it was a joy to rediscover it. A funny thing happened when I read it, though. As much as I realized and understood that the characters and happenings in the book were simply symbols for larger, more abstract ideas, it didn't take long for me to become engrossed in the actual storytelling and prose. The fact that it is, as Martin puts it, a thoroughly "English" book doesn't diminish the truth at the core of the novel about humanity: Man is flawed, and some would even say we are fatally flawed and destined to repeat our mistakes because of our nature. Strip away the confines of civilization and the structure of law and order, and man will return to his most base instincts.

I see Ralph as representing order and rules and the things that prop up society and help us maintain civilized behavior. He instructed Piggy to find out the names of all the survivors, and he tried to maintain an air of order by assigning responsibilities. He was benevolent and tried to do the right thing, but he was of average intelligence and didn't possess Piggy's innate intellect and scientific knowledge. Without Piggy, he probably would have never considered using the conch as a symbol of authority and using it to call meetings. Without Piggy, they wouldn't have had fire. As far as Piggy being the butt of their jokes, maybe Piggy was presented the way he was to show how many times intellectuals in society are mocked. I don't know. I thought that perhaps the littluns were intended to represent the simple masses, while the bigger boys represented varying levels of authority over them. Once again, I don't know. I might be way off base on that one.

Simon is the one who intrigues me the most, maybe because I can't quite decide how Golding was using him. Is he a religious symbol in a way? After all, he communicates with the Lord of the Flies (another name for Beelzebub, if I remember correctly), and he is the one who realizes early on that the boys really have nothing to fear, except for themselves. When he tries to expose the truth to the rest of the boys about the true nature of what they believe is the Beast, he is sacrificed and the truth is never known.

There are so many things I could say about this book, not least being that this is a novel that I admire on many different levels. There are two things I wonder about, though. First, what happened to the littlun with the birthmark who disappeared the first night? Second, am I the only one who wonders what character I would be in this same setting? Ralph, Roger, Jack, Simon, the twins, Piggy? Or is there a little bit of each of them in me and in us all?

I think there was a great deal of religious analogies in this book, I am remembering one character being an analogy for Christ - was it Simon? I seem to remember that his fits were considered something more then physical.

>Does the behaviour seem "different" to what you might expect from US kids of the fifties?

Not sure about the fifties, but I remember reading this in the seventies and having no trouble believing that the boys would behave just this way.

>And how would girls have behaved in a similar situation?

Not much different - they'd be cliques, and more psychological type viciousness which can be more damaging than physical. I'd like to think mine is the gentler sex, but I know better.

>"In a world that produced Hitler, how can you not?"

Excellent answer. I want to think that people would 'behave' humanely in a crisis, but we have seen what happens - some do rise to the occasion, others become the worst in taking advantage of the situation for their own gain. And these are adults.

> Strip away the confines of civilization and the structure of law and order, and man will return to his most base instincts.

I remember discussing this in class, and most of us being offended - 'we' would never do that. But its hard to know what we would do, and what part of us would come out (I like the idea that each character is 'a little bit of each of them in me and in us all' Which would explain how very complex human nature is and how we can't pigeon hole it.

Which brings to mind a wonderful quote from The Good Omens. The Angel and Demon are discussing the humans whom they have come to like. They consider that they have often seen actions that would cause an Angel to weep, and actions that rise to grace. Often in the same person. We are like that. What is it that brings the better side of us to front? Is it just order and civilization?

The bacchanal in which Simon was killed is from The Bacchae by Euripides. Golding probably intended some correspondence between the Beast and Dionysus, and Simon and Pentheus.

On the DVD of the 1963 film, Peter Brooks said the kids got so wild during the shooting of that scene that he and his cameraman were more than a bit nervous about being in the middle of them.

cjoseph, thanks for posting the above, as I can see more of a Greek connection than a Christian one. I am still waiting for someone to enlighten me about Simon. How is he a Christ figure? Perhaps I need to read this a third time....

Woodnymph, over the years I have heard various interpretations of Simon's character, and neither the The Bacchae or a strict Christian interpretation really fits completely, in my opinion.

The idea of Simon as a Christ figure probably issues from the idea that Simon appears almost as a mystic or spiritual being in that he is the only one who realizes and understands the true concept of evil and where it resides. Just as Christ talked with Satan in the event of the three temptations during his fasting period in the wilderness, some see a connection of that instance with Simon's communication with the pig's head or Lord of the Flies. When Simon emerges from the jungle and tries to share the truth with the other boys (similar to Jesus' ministry), he is mistaken for something he's not and killed by a frenzied mob.

Neither the Greek or the Christian interpretation fits flawlessly, but both have merit. I would be interested to know whether Golding ever made public what his intentions were regarding the Simon character.

It's evident (leaving aside all religious connotations) that Simon has a grand mal seizure disorder preceded by an aura, and that he recognizes the aura when it occurs.

I had not read this book before, and can only compare it to today's youth and the 'gang mentality'. Without any adult to rein them in I can quite easily see the boys running wild. Ralph was only 12 yrs old and I agree without Piggy he wouldn't have accomplished as much as he was able, but since Jack challenged him and apparently offered the others 'fun' with the hunting, I can see why the majority would follow Jack rather than Ralph who was the sensible one and knew the need to keep the fires going-quite boring stuff compared to hunting & killing!

I didn't get an impression of how much time passed on the Island, but it must have been a few weeks since the length of hair and nails was mentioned?
I was curious about the parachutist, where did he come from, there was no mention of a plane being sighted or heard?

I did also wonder what happened to the boys after they got off the Island, did Ralph tell adults what Jack & his hunters had done to Simon & Piggy? Would Jack come to his senses once he got off the Island or would he feel the need to find some way to retaliate against Ralph in fear of being held to account...?

Piggy's glasses not lighting a fire didn't bother me at all.

p.s. I did wonder while reading it if this is where the Producers of the TV show Lost got their ideas...plane crash, remote island, a beast...?

Pat

One wouldn't find a flawless fit unless Golding was a very bad writer. When authors make allusions to previous literature they may take only a few elements that suit their purposes. And these elements aren't necessarily restricted to one character or one incident. There are traces of Dionysus in Jack, and of Pentheus in Ralph and Piggy. LotF shows influences from Dafoe, Stevenson, Nietzsche, and even Darwin even though the connections may be too modified to draw exact parallels.

rule 34, thank you. That confirms what I had thought, from the descriptions.

"I would be interested to know whether Golding ever made public what his intentions were regarding the Simon character."

I sometimes wonder whether people read into books more than the writer ever intended to write into them. Is it not possible that Simon was intended just to be a "conscience" for the other boys, and the scenes with the Lord of the Flies were just dream-sequences or hallucinations due to his fits? Does it HAVE to be a religious theme at all? I don't dispute that either the Greek or Christ-figure can fit, but possibly neither were specifically intended.

Joseph - you've got to include The Coral Island by Ballantyne as an influence!!

This may be me being a scientist (and a spectacles-wearer!), but I actually found the error with the burning-glass to be a serious flaw in the book. I can get over it, but only with an effort.

It rather shocks me how angry people can get about things like split infinitives or bad grammar, and how sneering some people can get about not-very-good literature, and yet these same people will shrug their shoulders and say "so what?" about a fundamental part of the story which is just plain wrong.

What do people think of Roger? To me, he is the one person in the book who seems to be just plain bad. Do we need for Jack to have a loyal bad follower, as Piggy is a loyal good follower of Ralph?

Pat, I too had wondered about the parachutist. Are we to assume that whatever caused the boys' plane to crash had some hand in the other accident that made the pilot eject(?) when flares appeared unnoticed by the boys?
And if the dead body and the billowing parachute come to be seen as the 'beast' what was the snake-like beast described by the little boy with the birthmark on his face who then disappeared on their first night?

As I have never read this book before I am unable to offer anything about Golding's deeper meanings but cannot see any Christian message in Simon's behaviour.
As Mary puts forward, the boys speedy decline into savagery seems to suggest far more primitive urges, although as I write this it seems almost 'priggish' of me to suggest that someone representing a Christ-like figure should be considered a higher being or more civilized than a 'primitive' person.
Surely, it is because Simon has actually been up to the 'beast' and has seen that it is the tangled parachute cords causing the dead body and the parachute silk to blow about in the wind. He has found the practical reason for their fear but, of course, is never given the chance to explain it to the others. It doesn't seem at all mystical but confirms what Ralph had originally said "But there isn't a beast."

Btw, the notes at the end of my copy said the plane crash had possibly been caused by an atomic explosion. If this had been the case surely the whole area would have been devastated?

Why an atomic explosion? Don't see any reason to suggest that.

I'd assumed they were shot down, in some war. And what is meant by the passenger tube that got washed away?

I think this is probably one to not think about too carefully. We've already established that Golding, though a wonderful writer, was not a great scientist.

I'd assumed that the snake-like "beast" was just a dream. But it put the idea into the kids' heads, didn't it?

Martin, I also wonder sometimes if too much is read into an author's intentions and sometimes a rose is just a rose. At the end of my copy of LOTF, Golding is quoted as saying that the entire book is symbolic in nature except for the very last scene in which the boys are rescued. Also, it says (which lends strength to cjoseph's mention of the Greek interpretation of Simon and the pig's head) that Golding listed his hobbies as thinking, classical Greek, sailing, and archeology and that his literary influences included Euripides. Very interesting.

My impression is that the boys' plane was shot down during WWII, and that the parachutist was a victim of the same war because in the first page or so of Chapter Six, it says, ".....but there were other lights in the sky, that moved fast, winked, or went out, though not even a faint popping came down from the battle fought at ten miles' height. But a sign came down from the world of grownups, though at the time there was no child awake to read it. There was a sudden bright explosion and corkscrew trail across the sky....." and then the parachutist's body eventually landed on the island.

I'm still puzzling over what happened to the child with the birthmark. I'm thinking that he is even mentioned again close to the end of the book and that no one knows what happened to him. Was he the victim of someone like Roger, perhaps? That doesn't seem to make sense since the boys were still restricted in some ways by the bonds of civilization. Did he wander off during the night and fall into the ocean? I guess I'll never know. It doesn't keep me from wondering, though!

>Does it HAVE to be a religious theme at all?

No. I agree, people often read way too much into a book, and usually when I see lots of religious analogies coming up, my antennea go up. But I brought this up because someone was asking about Simon, and I was remembering in college talking about him being a christ like figure. I do like the idea that he was their conscience, much better.

I have also wondered what happened to the boys afterwards. I can imagine them thinking about what happened, and saying 'oh what have I done?'. Or not. There is obviously a war going on, so their misbehavior and violence might not have seemed like much in the grand scheme of the moment....

Martin- When Ralph tells Piggy that his Dad will rescue them Piggy tells Ralph "Didn't you hear what the pilot said? About the Atom Bomb? They're all dead".

Whether there was an actual bomb in Golding's story we don't know-but that is what the boys understand based on that statement.

Pat

Yes, The Coral Island, especially since it was mentioned twice in the text.

Did anyone find a specific mention that Piggy was myopic and not hyperopic? I thought that because Piggy seems not to be able to see at any distance that he was myopic, but I don't remember his trying to look at something close up. According to my eye doctor, people with bad hyperopia have trouble seeing distant objects also.

Strictly speaking, Golding was incorrect to refer to island as a coral island since it's obviously volcanic in origin, but I suppose he was using the term loosely to mean an island with coral reefs near it.

Correction to that last statement: coral islands (atolls) are ultimately volcanic in origin; the remains of the volcano are below sea level.

Joseph - yes, I have. It's a good book - very different from LotF. Not, to my mind, so full of symbolism as LotF - at least as far as I noticed. Mind, these things have a habit of going right over my head - I tend to only see what's in front of me in Literature.

It's actually the first of a trilogy, all of which I read, and all of which I enjoyed.

Martin, a few posts up you asked what we thought of Roger.
After only one reading I hadn't given him/his character much thought and to me he was just another 'name'.
But on going through the book again I noticed enough comments about him to provide quite a thorough character sketch.
Golding describes him as slight, furtive, unsociable, uncommunicative and impervious with a remoteness that had 'something forbidding'.
He was the boy who smashed up the little boys castles and then threw coconuts but because he was 'still conditioned by civilization' he aimed short.
Once Jack set himself up with his hunters Roger calls him a "proper Chief" and Golding goes on to show him as then 'assimilating the possibilities of irresponsible authority' and from then he goes on to beat up Sam and Eric to make them join their tribe and eventually he causes the death of Piggy.
Given that LoftheF's was written not long after WW11, no doubt Golding had in mind all the mindless but obedient thugs who had served the Nazi cause or the Communist henchmen of the Stalinist era (still 'happening' at the time of the book).

Didn't you all 'feel' for little Percival Wemys Madison? Of all the littluns he seemed so especially small and vunerable
and despite having learnt his name and address off by heart even he is past remembering who he is at the end.

One of Golding's biggest regrets is that he allowed his editor -- who for the most part made suggestions that improved the book enormously -- to cut out too much about Simon b/c the editor felt those parts were too heavy-handed. As a result, what is left is a little too slim and a bit puzzling. A look at the original manuscript might answer a lot of questions about Golding's original intentions for the character of Simon. (See the biography William Golding: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies)

It bothers me somewhat that Piggy's glasses could not have been used to light a fire. For that to be possible he would have had to be long sighted. In which case I'm not sure how helpless and victimised he would have been without them. This is a crucial element in the story and in my view completely undermines it.