Resumo de Lord Of The Flies

William Golding's 1954 dark tragic story is set during World War II on a SouthPacific island. A group of approximately twenty British school boys have found themselvesstranded on this island, alone, with no adults. We gather from the dialog that the boys landed on the island as a result of a plane crash, though no mentionis ever made of a wreckage or supplies extracted from the plane. If they crashed on the island in an airplane one would expect them to use the plane as shelter. Not so, the boys struggle to build flimsy shelters.The opening chapters are peculiar in the way the boys have to meet each other andlearn each others names. Other than a group of choir boys who arrive on the scenetogether marching like soldiers, they don't seem to know each other at all. If I wasflying across the Pacific with a bunch of other lads, I expect I would know the others on the plane. One is not expected to cast such a practical eye on this story. The situation isinvented to provide a vehicle for rich symbolism and an intense inner conflict. Thisis one of the great man vs. himself stories of the twentieth century. Perhaps it wouldbe more accurate to say man vs. the beast inside himself.Initially the boys are adventurous and excited about being free on the island. No adultsto tell them what to do and no rules. The lack of authority, structure, law, order and rulessets up one of the basic struggles in the story. We have a fundamental need for order.When order is lost we wrestle with all those in our society, no matter how small orlarge that society is, to establish new boundaries of behaviour. The young men slowly degrade into savagery. It is a dark, unpleasant picture Mr. Goldingpaints of our inner selves. The clear winner in the conflict is the beast inside the man. The boys are capable of violent murder, lies, fabricating a crude religionand treachery.The ending of the story makes a very strong statement, remarkably in one or two pages,for the power of adult presence. Mr. Golding is clearly arguing that without orderchaos will soon follow. If no one maintains a strict sense of authority we would revertback to savages.The author chose to leave women, young and old, out of the story. An aunt is mentioneda few times and a mother once or twice. These brief visits with the image of a woman arewhen the boys are longing for home, safety, peace and comfort. Would it be possible forsuch a degradation of behaviour to occur if there were young girls on the island withthe boys? In the presence of ladies, men behave differently. We use different words andact differently. When women are placed in harms way men become protective. This complicationis left out of the book. Women modify our hierarchy of needs. If a woman is in danger men are geared to self-sacrifice. When women are present we are less likely to think about ourselves. Young girls on the island would have introduced anothertype of competition. A competition for companionship with the girls. Thiswould have distracted from the man vs. himself battle the author was working todevelop.I believe it is more than just the absence of adults in the story thatcreates the conditions necessary for the deterioration of societal values. It is theabsence of women which is critical to this story.

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