A good book, very interesting, well written with violent and disturbing content.
Plot
When a group of about 30 boys with no adults are plane-wrecked on an unknown island, they must band together to survive. Soon however, not only have they formed tribes, one for hunting wild pigs and the other keeping a fire going, but they also fight over the slightest thing. At first they are grudgingly friends, but soon their darker impulses take over, leading to much more than cuts and bruises.
Morality
The boys do not act like Christians; they cheat, steal, and kill, and most, if not all, are self-serving in the extreme. A character bullies in order to maintain control. Other characters are willfully destructive and blood-thirsty. The book is a dark portrayal of human nature and the thin line between reason and animal savagery - the theme, really, is the breakdown of morality outside the bounds of "society."
Spiritual Content
One boy has hallucinations where he sees the “Lord of the Flies” and has a couple of conversations with him. One tribe adopts the “Beastie” (a dead parachutist) as their god and offers a pig’s head to it as a sacrifice.
Violence
The author draws the reader into gory battles and deaths and makes them vivid; much of the book deals with rampant killing and a grotesque joy in causing death. The corpse of a fighter pilot is discovered. The head of a wild pig plays a major part in the plot. A number of characters are killed by other boys. The very fact that the wars are between children makes them far more disturbing, for it cuts through the notion of the "innocence" of youth.
Drug and Alcohol Content
None.
Sexual Content
None.
Crude or Profane Language or Content
They twist the word asthma into “ass-mar” and there is some name calling.
Conclusion
"The Lord of the Flies" has long been recognized as a controversial and dark novel of human nature, full of grotesque imagery and allegory. Written after the horrors of World War II, the philosophy it presents is certainly anything but "progressive" or Utopian; it captures instead the corruption of humanity, though within an Evolutionary, not biblical, framework. As such, it cannot be expected to be anything but pessimistic in its final tone. As far as the writing itself, sometimes the boys’ bad grammar and constant arguing made the storyline hard to understand. I think the author purposely left out the date to leave it up to the reader's imagination, but war obviously looms in the background.
