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Lord of the Flies

 

Lord of the Flies
Written by William Golding

Originally published in 1954
About 200 pages
Rate 4.9/5

My summary of Lord of the Flies

A group of boys, ages 6-12, end up on a deserted island with no adults because their plane crashed. Ralph and Piggy find a conch and use it to call a meeting to gather all the boys together. A choir boy named Jack insists on being the leader, but because Ralph blew the conch the group deems him worthy of being called chief. Rules are put into action, but soon the boys grow restless having only fruit. Jack decides to lead a pack of boys to hunt for a pig. They find pleasure in the hunt, but feel as if something is watching them. Some of them start to think that maybe they are the ones being hunted.

My thoughts on Lord of the Flies

The only reason why I didn't give this book a solid five out of five was because of the fact that all the characters are boys and sometimes when there was dialogue it was tricky trying to tell who was talking because they all have the same pronouns. This however, is more of a me problem.

Going into this book, I knew that some people found it repulsive, so I knew there was going to be some sort of twist of fate. However, with that being said, I found foreshadowing moments only three chapters in. It could have been because I knew to look out for something terrible, or maybe it was just super obvious. Either way, the foreshadowing was brilliantly written.

Though this book was short, it took a while to get through because of the amount of annotations I wanted to make. I can totally see why English teachers love this book so much! There is so much to this story, the foreshadowing, the symbolism, the characters, etc. I get that this is a gruesome tale and it might not be for everyone, but if your the type of person who loves symbolism and analyzing things, this is the book for you!

(Spoilers!!) When I was reading this book I was trying to decide why it was called Lord of the Flies, and when Simon was talking with that pig head and the flies landed on him I thought oh is Simon the lord of the flies? Then as I read on, I realized that the lord of the flies isn't a person, it's a thing that's a part of all of us, it's the fact that whether we like it or not, we let fear control us. Of course there are many other things that can be analyzed, but because that's the name of the book I just thought it was so interesting.

Quotes

"He looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger."
"They were reminded of their personal sorrows; and perhaps felt themselves to share  in a sorrow that was universal."
"I know about people. I know about me. And him. He can't hurt you: but if you stand out of the way he'd hurt the next thing. And that's me."

Links

Buy it at Barnes and Noble

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