Diane Henningfeld Lord Of The Flies Analysis

Children are often portrayed as pure and undefiled. Some people would even attempt to shield the children from the inevitable path of adulthood. Living on an isolated island can certainly be life changing. For the boys in Lord of the Flies, they were ultimately forced to quickly adapt and learn how adult life really works resulting in the corruption of this group. In Diane Andrews Henningfeld’s critical essay, she discusses quite a bit about the allegory of the story. She sees political allegory within the story. From each character, she interprets them to be different parts of a government. In the beginning, the boys were civilised sticking to what they believed to be normal or “the taboo of old life”(Golding 87). As they gathered around and realised the lack of adults present, they

Here they tried to imitate to the best of their ability what they believed was the correct actions to do. They believed that their only chance to survive and get rescued was if they had order. With Ralph as their leader and Piggy as his “advisor” (Henningfeld 188), they were able to sustain each other for a while. Eventually, their society slowly began to fall apart. Henningfeld wrote that Jack represented “a totalitarian dictator” who ruled by “charisma and hysteria” and Roger represented the henchman Jack needed to stay in power. These opposing forces didn’t find ways to work things out or make compromises. Instead, they began to argue and consequently split into separate groups. At first glance, some may think that Ralph’s group would be superior to Jack’s because Ralph had a goal of getting rescued and worked hard to ensure