Brandon Aguilar

Lord of the Flies Book Review

The novel takes place in a dystopian era on an Island in the middle of
the Pacific Ocean. A plane crashes leaving only boys no older than 14 as
survivors. The groups of boys try to govern themselves in order to survive
until they get rescued. The main characters are Ralph, Jack, Piggy, Sam, Eric
and Simon. Ralph, the books protagonist, was elected as the leader and is in
charge of the boys and has major influence within the group. Ralphs main
goal is to give structure to the boys. Jack, the antagonist, is leader of the
hunters. He has opposing ideas from Ralph and eventually becomes the
leader of the savagery movement. Piggy, who is the one that thinks with
reasoning and logic, is Ralphs Lieutenant. Sam and Eric who are twins, are
also closely allied with Ralph. Finally there is Simon, who is a shy loyal
follower of Ralph.
When a boy with a mulberry birthmark brings up ideas of fear which is
represented through the medium of a beast spreads throughout the boys and
evolves which is the root of all problems within the boys and puts strain on
Ralphs control of the boys. With inter conflicts and disagreements Jack
separates from Ralphs group and makes starts a tribe separate from
Ralphs. With all the boys being at unease and overcome with fear they
eventually join Jacks tribe and give into his barbaric ideology in order to kill
their fear and feel safe. Unfortunately even with Simons revelation and

discovery his gained knowledge isnt spread throughout the boys leaving
them
What I noticed is that the author heavily implements meaning into
items. Everyone interprets things differently, so the dynamic of the book can
change depending on the way you think of something to be or mean. All the
book does is depict the story of young English boys being stranded on an
uninhabited island in a dystopian era. The novel doesnt elaborate on any
specific theme or explain any meaning to anything. The author left out
leaving descriptions of the significance of anything so then the reader can
independently come up with it and the reader can have their own individual
theme for the book.
The novel was written in way where our perception of what we find
normal doesnt apply to the universe of the novel. The transition between
civilization and savagery was so subtle and unnoticeable that the savage
inhumane events that take place later in the book feels to be a norm rather
than something out of the ordinary. The transition doesnt seem to be
something that occurs but rather something that just is. People say why we
let things reach to an extreme point, this depiction of such subtle transitions
between is indicative of why people do let it reach to that certain point.
Now the only thing that is a letdown is the characters. I would
have found it much clearer why certain people made the decisions they did if
the author gave more layers, more complexity to the characters in the novel.

Due to the ambiguous nature of the book the characters are too simple in my
opinion and deserve more complexity to their personalities. What this would
do is make the reader more aware of the characters reasoning and feelings
which would add more complexity to the plot along with having the reader
think deeper about the novel.
With everything being said its understandable why this book is
recognized praised how it is. because of the books depiction of human
mannerism when theyre being overcome with fear and hopelessness. I
would recommend this book for young teenagers and older children for the
reason is that it opens their eyes to the reality of the human society how
anything can happen when forces of fear and hopelessness push one to
being weak and giving up.