“We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies
In Lord of the Flies, a group of British boys are deserted on an island, facing the challenge of survival while they wait for help to arrive. Each character varies in personality, but attempts to work together as a community, a society. In this way, they could naturally be more civilized, more rational, and better prepared. William Golding, however, questions this effort because the boys are simply repeating the reactionary behavior that left their world in an atomic war. If he were alive today, the most obvious situation he would comment on is the division of society. We divide people not by who they are in reality but by what they look like to us.
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To begin, Golding creates characters that other characters stereotype. Piggy is fat, wears glasses, and has asthma. [You need more evidence here. How about his poor English? Even though he might look and sound unintelligent from the outside, he is actually one of the smartest people on the island. He is the only one to suggest that the fire be transported down from the mountain “‘and be built on them rocks’” (Golding 129) when everyone is too afraid to go back up to the area possibly inhabited by the beast. His intellect is far superior than the rest of the boys. Like Piggy, Simon is physically weak and shows it right away. When the heavily robed chorus first marches down to the beach, “[Simon] flop[s] on his face in the sand and the line broke” (Golding 20). However, Simon is sensitive to those around him and selfless. He helps build huts. He figures out that the beast is only themselves. When the boys are arguing where the beast comes from, Simon timidly remarks, “‘ What I mean is . . . maybe it’s only us’” (Golding 89). He understands, on a deeper level than most, that danger is only created by the boys’ animal instincts for power over the island and over each other. On the other hand, Ralph