Friday Focus: Social issues

Hello readers!

As we know, a bunch of kids are stranded on a lone island in Lord of the flies. The kids try to establish a working society with laws and a leader, but they fail miserably. The book shows how easy it is for humans to resort to savagery and become violent. In the beginning, they were all struggling for survival and cooperating. There was only one tribe and everyone worked for the common good. As soon as the whole island was explored and things wasn’t as foreign anymore, Jack made a new tribe to compete with the one Ralph and Piggy made. The new tribe took members from the other tribe by promising that they would hunt and feast. Only Jack, Piggy, Ralph and Simon are able to see what is happening with the society. The rest of the kids are simply “following the flow” and are acting like they are on a holiday.

Lord of the flies relates to the subject of social studies by showing what a bunch of kids would do if left alone on an island. Some think that humans are civilized enough to function on their own without a clear leader, but this book shows that as soon as there is no real authority in power they follow their instincts and begin to kill each other. Jack and Ralph are equal in terms of leadership skills and have the same amount of respect from the other kids, so they are competing against each other on who to lead the kids. In the beginning, Jack leads the choir or “the hunters” as they are referred to under Jack while Ralph leads the tribe. After a while, Jack’s lust for power grows, especially after they kill their first pig. In the end, the whole book is a fight between Ralph and Jack for authority and power. Jack tries to take over Ralph’s tribe, but fails miserably every time since he doesn’t have the majority with him. Instead, he creates a new tribe to steal members from Ralph’s tribe and slowly creating a majority by promising food and no rules for those who join. The fight between the two tribes result in the death of Simon and Piggy. In the end of the book, when the naval officer comes and asks “Who’s boss here” (Golding, 224), Ralph says he is the boss since he is the first to meet the officer. Then power is transferred from Ralph to the officer, who is a grown up. Order is restored and the kids stop fighting since they are in the presence of a grown up.

The book shows that even though the kids have had a good adolescence so far and are from Britain, they resort to their instincts when they are left alone without a clear leader. As soon as the naval officer shows up, the fighting stops since a grown-up has arrived on the island and the kids respect him.