Ms. Hen reviews Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies

William Golding

Farber & Farber

1954

Ms. Hen read this book years ago, but not when she was in school. She found a copy recently at a Little Free Library around the corner from where she lives in February, when she left the house on a regular basis. She almost didn’t pick it up that time, because she had read it before, and it’s a young adult novel, but she’s glad she did because she thinks it says a lot about the way she is living now, as well as much of the world.

(Ms. Hen got the idea to write a version of LORD OF THE FLIES about her living situation now, which she will not get into, but will save for when the idea ripens into a fully bloomed concept.)

This novel is about a large group of schoolboys who end up on an island somewhere in the South Pacific. Some boys are young, and some are between ten and twelve. The boys decide they have to try to be saved by having a fire burning continuously on top of the mountain on the island. They vote Ralph as their chief, and Piggy is a fat boy who wears glasses and has asthma, who becomes Ralph’s friend. Piggy lends his glasses to kept the fire alit.

The boys get along at first, but as time goes by, they start to fight. The hunters, led by Jack, want to hunt and eat meat all the time, while Ralph is primarily concerned with keeping the fire going for the smoke signal so they can be rescued. This novel is considered allegorical because the different characters represent different parts of society: Ralph is the leader, or the balance, Piggy, the intellectual, and the scientific side of things, and Jack is the savage or the wild one.

When Ms. Hen read LORD OF THE FLIES this time, after so many years, she realized that there are no women in this book at all. The boys reminisce about their mothers, and being at home, but no women play any roles. Ms. Hen wonders if the story would be the same if the children that landed on the island were all girls instead of boys. She tries to imagine what it would be like for a large group of young girls happened to end up in this situation, and she doesn’t know if it would turn out any differently. Girls can be nasty and cruel in their own ways, but chances are good that they would be able to work together and find a way to figure out how to get along. Ms. Hen likes to imagine that girls would be better in an emergency situation such as this, but she is not positive. Girls are not innately savage and violent as boys, so they might not have the gumption to hunt for food, but might cooperate dealing with problems better. Ms. Hen has no proof of this theory.

Ms. Hen liked this novel, though it lacks female characters. She imagined that all the boys would be disgustingly dirty and would smell at the end of the book, and she is right. It’s a perfect novel to read right now, with the situation in the world the way it is. There are people around the world who could be writing their own version of LORD OF THE FLIES, or if not, they are living it day to day.