Novel review | "Lord of the Flies": The Beast Comes from the Heart

Text/Wang Xu

(Works: "The Lord of the Flies", by William Golding, translated by Gong Zhicheng, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, October 2009)

Ralph stipulates that children who ask to speak must hold a conch, and only by holding a conch can they have the right to speak at the meeting. Such a rule is a clumsy imitation of the "Indian Speaking Stick". It introduced a vision of a democratic atmosphere of loose mutual respect, but allowed the children to rapidly transform themselves into barbarian form in the days that followed.

This metamorphosis stems from the absence of understanding. Ralph's rules, from the very beginning, put the right to speak with a conch in a "similar and scattered" situation. When the Indians gathered, only those with a stick could speak, and the rest could only listen in silence. During this period, they are not allowed to express their opinions, to argue, to express approval or disapproval, and to try to express their understanding of what the speaker has said. When all have expressed their understanding, it is incumbent upon the speaker to hand over the baton to the next person who requests to speak. Every time Ralph called a meeting, he was always noisy and arguing, and the decisions he made were never effectively implemented. No one understood what it meant to be meeting, and even Ralph's repeated emphasis on being the head of the meeting, which was not very reliable at the beginning of the story, was a farce-like format for the meeting.

Farce is farce, and Ralph still spares no effort to maintain the formal symbolism of the meeting. Because it symbolizes a way for the adults of the civilized world to solve problems. In Ralph's daydreams, place names such as Chatham, Devonport, and Dartmoor still appear, as well as polished copper teapots, tea trays with little blue figures, and children's books "Trains" and "Ships". Ralph can feel the pleasure and kindness they contain, because everything in the civilized world has not completely disappeared from Ralph's memory, which makes Ralph still a little brainy child on a desert island.

The child realized something in the face of Jack's stumbling. "These barbarians with colorful faces will go farther and farther." Ralph's foresight of Jack and his gang left a hint of anachronistic fluke, "No. They wouldn't be so bad. That happened by chance." The weakness of civilization was helplessly revealed by Golding, and it reflected the horror of Jack's gang transforming into barbarians.

Ralph's proposal to use meetings as a way to discuss and solve problems at the outset left Jack with a space to confront himself. Jack was the captain of the choir, so Ralph, who was elected head, decided that Jack would manage the choir, and the choir would be responsible for hunting. This is Ralph's gesture of affection to Jack, and it is also a means of communication for the adults of the civilized world to balance a situation in a similar situation. Ralph learned very quickly, leaving the story to begin wrapped in a warm, melting tone that seemed to see hope.

It is undeniable that in the short period after Ralph was elected head, civilization wandered and wandered on this desert island with her graceful steps, as if it had never severed the connection between these children and the civilized world of adults. It is marked by Ralph's command to the children to collect firewood and set up a fire as a distress signal, showing the inevitable belief in rescue. This belief was severely challenged by Jack's obsession with hunting. Jack just wanted to hunt, and he wanted meat for the kids. Ralph argues that taking care of the fire as a distress signal is the first priority. This is how disagreements arise, and at the same time they breed confrontation. But neither of them was wrong. However, the gap between Ralph and Jack grows, and eventually Jack has the upper hand, and the natural law of survival of the fittest kills Ralph.

"Lord of the Flies" runs through the book with the laws of nature, which makes the transformation of Jack and his gang without any suspicion of falsification, but follows a regular evolution path of civilization being swallowed up by barbarism. Jack in the hunt, surveying the terrain, observing the animal tracks, laying out manpower, until the wild boar is captured, after the victory, he takes the lead in singing his own hunting songs and dancing the unrestrained hunting dance, all of which make a violent atmosphere spread undisguised in Jack's heart, and the reason is squeezed by the violence, and finally prompts Jack to forget the meaning of "salvation".

When Jack forgets what "salvation" is, "hope" becomes unnecessary. Because for children at this time, life is enough, every day in addition to eating and sleeping, is to play. Crises are brewing in the shadows. Pig cubs were the first to perceive the unexpected arrival of a crisis. If Jack were the head, he would hunt and the children would stay on the island until they died. At this time, it was already the time when the confrontation between Ralph and Jack was white-hot, and Ralph was retreating.

The most cerebral pig cub among the children gave the impression of being too weak to be seen. And Simon, too. The former is a symbol of weak technical rationality and the latter is the image of an unheeded rebel. On the desert island, only the two of them, who were not so determined, stood with Ralph. The pig cub reluctantly raised his hand to vote when Ralph was elected head, but foresaw that once Ralph stepped aside, jack's next person to hurt was undoubtedly himself. Simon, on the other hand, is determined by his inner will to govern his actions and choices. They are the only allies of civilization. Pig Cub and Simon's support for Ralph gave the remnants of civilization a mournful cry on the desert island.

Simon had the audacity to say that "the beast is just ourselves", adding annotations to the novel's very different mentalities of the children that are consistent with the laws of nature. Ralph repeatedly emphasizes his title of "head", Jack uses the ability to get meat to fight and win over the children, the pig cub defends Ralph's authority from the perspective of being rescued, and Simon's search for the specific truth of the "beast" is the manifestation of the "heart demon", which is on a desert island far away from the civilized world, directing the continuation of the hunting game between adults in a group of children. This continuation expands the size of the jungle and interprets the "Beast of the Heart" to the extreme through the children's bloody hunting of their own kind.

The "beast of the heart" is the pronoun of ugliness, which is the rich meaning of the story that Golding tells. The various references to "Ugliness" in Lord of the Flies are not only focused on the horror of Jack's gang's transformation into barbarism, but also consider the filth of Ralph's own soul as the guardian of civilization, which embeds the fate factor of inevitability in the process of releasing irrational forces once the beast named "Ugly" trapped in the heart breaks free of the cage.

This group of children was stranded on a desert island because of a plane crash, and the desert island, as an unconstrained place, fluttered with an unusual joy among the children without adults. This euphoria has the joy of having achieved its ideal. "No adults!" Ralph's voice seemed to be as intense as relief, and among them, there was a long-suppressed rush inadvertently hidden. The cage disappears, and the undisguised self reveals its true form. Ignoring the trust of the first child he met on the desert island when he told him the nickname, Ralph still shouted at the fat boy in a mocking manner, a title that was enough to make the other party feel ashamed. With the nickname Pig Cub well known, no one showed due respect to the fat boy. Because he was obnoxious, "fat body, asthma, coupled with his dry pragmatic ideas, made people think he was boring". This makes making fun of pig cubs a joy for kids. However, the suggestions made by the pig cubs were completely accepted by Ralph and became the product of the "wisdom" that Ralph pulled out of his own pockets. The piglet's moral rebuke about this was drowned out in Ralph's rebuke and Jack's contempt. The pig cub's encounter highlights an embarrassing situation in the human heart, whether it is Ralph, the guardian of civilization, or Jack, who symbolizes barbarism, can trample on morality. This stems from the ugly humanity, which incarnates as the beast of the heart and firmly dominates the increasingly cold, dark tone of the second half of the novel.

The second half of "Lord of the Flies", as the essence of the whole book, is almost a condensation and reproduction of the means of communication and various rules between the adults of the civilized world on the desert island. This group of children on the desert island, with no commendable real friendship, only cooperation and compromise in extraordinary times, were finally suppressed and swallowed by the powerful squeeze of Jack's gang who had transformed into barbarism.

Although Ralph ridiculed the pig cub and grabbed the wisdom of the latter's mind that he could use for himself, the pig cub still maintained a cooperative relationship with him. Because the pig cub has already seen it, the only one who can hold on to the rescue as a belief is Ralph. More importantly, Jack didn't dare hurt Ralph. This allows the pig cub to strive to maintain Ralph's authority from a personal selfish point of view, with the civilized world's emphasis on the level of interpersonal rules and choices rather than the purity of so-called friendship.

At the level of interpersonal rule selection, Ralph to Jack, in addition to the confrontation between beliefs and opinions, there will also be compromises under the condition of lack of resources. Jack and his choir members are now hunters on a desert island, hunting wild boars and seemingly generously distributing the roast to Ralph and the pig cubs. The aroma of grilled meat softens the atmosphere between the children and makes Goldin's exposition of the human condition a shocking practical significance. In the more relaxed atmosphere created by the sharing of resources, Ralph and Pig cubs, who are stuffed with roast meat, also join Jack's gang in the wild dance. It was like a magical hunting dance, making every child go crazy and play with the rhythm of the chorus " a burst of feelings" to the fullest. No one paid any serious attention to what happened next, although afterwards The Pig Cubs had a palpitation to remind Ralph that Jack had killed Simon during the wild dance. It was a murder. Ralph used excuses to dismiss the matter. Because Ralph and the pig cub also danced that dance, the tacit denial of it became a consensus between Ralph and the pig cub. This consensus makes the concept of accomplices crystal clear.

Denying himself to participate in that dance was an important turning point for Ralph and Pig Cub, a pair of collaborators, as accomplices to Jack's gang. It mocks the efforts and determination of civilization to maintain and adhere to the "light and civilization" in conjunction with the darkness of human nature, and the ugliness in the human heart, driven by the barbaric primitive force, has contributed to the rapid appearance of the children on the desert island from the inside out to the form of beasts.

Jack painted his face with oil paint, and his hunters followed suit. These choir members from a long time ago, "they used to line up in two rows of discipline, and they used to sing the songs of angels." Now, the masks hide their true colors, and with it comes a wild flare-up. As a primitive shield, the oil paint stimulates the animal nature hidden in the human heart, which is originally a part of the "human" body, and when a veil is worn, the animal's instinct realizes the overwhelming abandonment of goodness. As a result, ugliness became the only correct code on a desert island. Hunting down all those who dare to seek the truth, using force for visible gain, and under the coercion of ugliness, they are all victims of the desert island code.

Simon dies under the spears of Jack's gang as he discovers the simple truth. Goldin uses a hidden pen to guide the reader to peel off the layered veil covering the plot, connecting the meaning of reality hidden under the veil with ugliness, and exposing the untouchable darkness in the depths of people's hearts at a glance. The "beast" is a rumor on a desert island that sows fear in the hearts of children while also planting a tool to manipulate groups. With this tool, children, under the coercion of fear, will collectively lose themselves and become undeterred bodies that obey orders and act at the behest of the members of the core layer. This is a metaphor for the civilized world. The point of this metaphor is that those who dare to seek the truth and break through fear will be strangled collectively. Once the truth is revealed, the fear in people's hearts is eliminated, and the bond that binds you and me twisted by fear will disintegrate, and the collective will cease to exist. As a rebel, Simon discovers that the "beast" on the desert island is nothing more than the body of a pilot hanging from a tree and dragged by a parachute. This simple truth is undoubtedly fatal to the metaphor of "fear", which killed Simon under the desert island code, but it is also a not uncommon example of collective strangulation.

Jack's robbery of pig cubs' glasses is an armed operation in the Desert Island Code for visible profits. This action can be understood as the defeat of "civilization", the victory of "barbarism". From a symbolic point of view, how can it not be a completely out-of-control collective suppression of individuals, an armed plunder of resources and interests. Pig cubs' glasses can focus on sunlight and ignite firewood, which makes it an important tool on desert islands. The plundering and appropriation of it opens up a mode of conquest of the strong against the weak.

This pattern allows children to wander on desert islands stretching the boundaries of the jungle and expanding the ageless participants that the laws of nature ingest for humans. This is a profound theme of the fable "Lord of the Flies", where "evil" is pervasive in the human heart and dominates human decisions and actions. With or without the constraints of rules, the constraints of "goodness" are powerless in the face of the forces it unleashes.

(End of full text.) Made on October 8, 2021)

——The views in the article belong to the author himself, I am responsible for the text, and have nothing to do with the publishing platform (including various websites, forums, self-media, public accounts), reprinted print media, and others.

About the author: Wang Xu. His pen names include Wang Muyu, Xu Muyu, Xu Muyu's Bookcase, and Wang Xu 326, who settled in Chongqing.