‘Why do you hate me?’
For the longest time possible, I thought LOTF was a parody of lord of the rings… because I’m just a loser like that. When I realized that it isn’t – and furthermore has been compared to the Catcher in the Rye (which I love), I decided to read it. That I finally did. IT WAS BRILLIANT.
I’ve loved books because they were really wise, or had a great plot, or cool gimmicks, or pretty language. LOTF was just purely, simply, well-written. It captured the essence I was hoping to find in The Hunger Games (which was disappointing). Also curious is that a LOTF-inspired AC play I watched (before reading) helped me appreciate the reading process a lot; at the same time the play seems much better in hindsight after having read it.
Anyway. This is the first novel since Life of Pi that’s succeeded in sticking with me throughout the Day After Read (I have a poor attention span). Kept replaying my favourite scenes and images, and since I’m so distracted why not vent it all here? Of course when I fail my As y’all can just refer me back to this page as evidence of my academic inertia. But whatever for now la hor.
Best moments in LOTF (WARNING: THERE ARE MANY. WARNING #2: SPOILERS.)
Piggy’s ostracism. I love the way Piggy was already marginalised in the beginning, hinting at the shadow of cruelty inherent in all mankind. Except here it’s just emotional bullying; an acceptable, subtle form of torture. Watch out for what happens later.
I love Jake and the choir’s entry. All black robes and caps with matching badges and straight rows – already intimidating but still familiar (okay fine I was thinking death eaters). It’s a parallel to their tribe later on (exciting stuff), which I find to be genius. All structure and order and uniform, except now they’re identified – which makes all the world of difference.
As a tribe they were equally structured – keeping rhythms with drums and using the same weapons, and the hauntingly organized manner they searched for Ralph with ululations. Except this time, they have war paint on. The war paint serves as a mask of anonymity, a heavy symbol in LOTF (also extensively explored online: Google deindividuation).
Essentially, Golding is saying that civilisation is a bunch of labelled barbarians. The only thing keeping us from tearing at each other’s intestines with our bare teeth is the fact that we’re given an identity. Our age, race, nationality, class, right down to our identification numbers. We become an accounted for member of society and therefore adhere to social conduct. That’s basically the only reason why we’re not savages. But back to the book.
There were a few couple of scenes leading to the final loss of humanity, and each were so well sculpted. Jake’s first encounter with the pig. He was appointed a hunter, he had the knife, was supposed to kill, but didn’t. Civilisation and it’s rules were ingrained in him. But he says – I think under embarrassment – ‘next time, I will do it’ with an almost painful determination. He becomes obsessed with hunting and once he made his first kill it was all he wanted to do after.
Roger’s scene with the little ones. Roger felt the sudden desire to hit the young un with stones, but only dared to throw around the boy. I particularly loved the line ‘Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and the policemen and the law.’ But they were on an uninhabited island. I loved how the power of rules drilled into us can be restricting even when we know, logically, there are no consequences to it. Also I loved how it wasn’t compassion or propriety that kept Roger from hurting another, but just the concept of a distant rule he was once made to follow.
Early in the novel before the dark stuff begins, Ralph, Jake and Simon (they’re all under 13) explored the island for a bit. At this point they were full of hope and camaraderie and youthful foolishness, totally oblivious of what’s about to happen.
Ralph would, in a few weeks, reminisce about these few hours as a ‘brighter childhood’. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s exact truthfulness makes it beautiful. Halfway into the plot I felt myself looking back at it as precisely that. A brighter childhood. Which makes my recalling of my own brighter childhood so much less silly (to me at least).
One of my favourite scenes tied to this brighter childhood is that of the mirage. Ohmygoshitisso. I reread this bit of description over and over trying to picture it. (alright just spent ages Googling the quote):
“Strange things happened at midday. The glittering sea rose up, moved apart in planes of blatant impossibility; the coral reef and the few, stunted palms that clung to the more elevated parts would float up into the sky, would quiver, be plucked apart, run like rain-drops on a wire or be repeated as in an odd succession of mirrors. Sometimes land loomed where there was no land and flickered out like a bubble as the children watched.”
Throughout the novel you learn that the mirage takes away reason and reality, and kind of distorts their view, literally and metaphorically, into viewing rescue as a possibility.
One of the classic scenes of LOTF, and probably what you’d call a climax, is when Simon spirals into madness. Spiralling into madness is a phrase I will never escape from after taking Paper 1 lit. The insanity was reminiscent of when I went through the Bell Jar. I FELT LIKE I WAS GOING INSANE. Talking to an inanimate, grinning, macabre skull on the stick that represent the whole truth… HEARING the whole truth from the mouth of this calm skull – it was pretty traumatising. I didn’t even realize Simon was going mad… I thought I was.
Yeah anyway, Simon – the one who first isolates himself from the community, and who first realized many truths (of human nature, of the true identity of the ‘beast’), was killed. THE KILLING SCENE. THE DANCE. Another one of Golding’s beautiful, beautiful creations. The chant of ‘kill the beast! slit it’s throat! and something! i forgot!’ together as a tribe (even Ralph, Piggy, Samneric who embodied the remaining vestiges of civilised humanity) until they became one sole force with the single intent of killing ‘the beast’ which they knew, somewhere, wasn’t the beast but one of them some time ago.
The next day no one would admit they had murdered Simon.
Piggy’s head got smashed (and his brains spilt all over and dyed the tides pink and was washed away), together with the conch shell he was holding. The conch shell, one of the greatest literary symbols I can think of in my limited literary knowledge besides the red hunting hat in Catcher (the catcher – or preserver of innocent childhood – wore the hat. It was held by Holden until he transferred the responsibility/the hat to his sister, who later reconciled Holden’s desire to keep a child’s purity with his adolescence).
The thing is, the conch shell was just a random one picked up by Ralph. But the power he and the other boys invested into this shell made it incredible. They blew on to it to call for assemblies, held on to it until it was bleached from creamy pink to translucent, and constantly looked upon it with ‘revered affection’. At the same time they recognized how silly it was since ‘he was the one who picked it up from the beach’. Jack’s lot later rejects the conch’s authority.
The conch probably represents civilisation in its ability to call for order and meetings where decisions were made. Only those who held the conch were allowed to speak. What is amazing about this symbol is that its power comes from human; it is wholly constructed by men. When it shattered into a million bright pieces it becomes nothing. It was nothing to start with, and therefore HAD to break when the concept of civilisation was rejected by majority in the island. ISN’T THAT JUST. GENIUS.
The last scene. Possibly my favourite scene of all because it’s so hauntingly, vividly beautiful and wouldn’t stop playing in my head like the best nightmare ever. Ralph is still struggling to keep civil. The tribe is hunting him down for murder, they chase and chase and there was no escape, Ralph trips and rolls out into the beach.
And then.
It’s over. He meets civilisation – in fact, an authority. An officer is there and (THIS IS MY FAVOURITE PART OF THE ENTIRE NOVEL) – as if Golding has complete mastery over my imagination – all the images in my mind transform. Throughout the novel I’ve forgotten they were children. They became ageless and half-beast – savages. When Ralph rolls over there was a blur and, as if tumbling out of a bad dream, everything became bright and real, all the characters (GOLDING WRITES SO WELL) became young, young children.
The officer has NO IDEA what had been going on and assume they were just playing war. He asked how many has died (jokingly I think) and in an instant, all the gory and traumatic death, out of (the now very infantile) Ralph’s mouth: ‘only two’, seems childish and almost insignificant. All the children start crying. The aged seven kid before who had been reciting his name and address over and over in the beginning cannot remember how the hell to start his name. CRYING. I picture of a bunch of tiny emaciated kids with paint streaked across their face bawling like babies. The officers think they’re just scared kids.
And here, as sudden and sublime as when everything became bright and clear and un-scary, it starts to dawn on you exactly HOW FRIGHTENING IT IS THAN BEFORE (even the chasing/killing part). Yes, the children were scared, but not for reasons he’d guess. It’s fear for ‘the end of innocence’ and the ‘darkness of men’s heart’. And it is this, bringing the knowledge of humanity’s decay from an island of surreal savagery, into a place of civilisation and reality – by thirteen year olds – that is the most insanely frightening truth of all.
It sounds kind of lame when I try to explain it, but I just had to. I love it. Never had so many lines and scenes in a single novel hit me and stay with me like that. I don’t know why but now I kind of sound like a Britney song. Maybe, tired. Also angry at self because I have wasted a whole lot of time. Past/present tense prolly warped in the whole post but I hit my head against the pool wall today and therefore is justified in speaking crazy. Thank you bye FML.
Q 