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Themes in LOTF The Littlest Killers
This April, a six-year-old boy and a pair of his friends, eight-year-old twin brothers, broke into a house in a low-income neighborhood of Richmond, California. Their original goal was to steal a "Big Wheel" type tricycle; once inside, according to police accounts, things turned ugly. Apparently, the trio's ringleader hadn't picked their burglary target at random; he had a grudge against the people who lived there. When he came across a month-old baby boy sleeping in a crib, he spilled the child from the bassinet and beat him with a stick. The infant survived, but suffered two skull fractures and potentially serious brain damage. The accused is currently being evaluated to determine if he is competent to be charged with attempted murder.
Parents leave their ten-month-old baby in the care of their other two children, aged three and six. Unfortunately, the children quickly tire of listening to the infant cry. They stick the child into a wood-burning stove. The baby's charred remains are found in the firebox several hours later. The year? 1932.
A seven-year-old boy ends a heated argument with a five-year-old playmate by tying the younger child up, stuffing socks in his mouth, and brutally beating him with a stick. He later bluffs his way through two police interrogations before admitting, in a third session, to hitting the smaller boy a few times. At last word, the victim is in critical condition with cuts, bruises and possible internal injuries. The year? 1943.
How are these newspaper articles linked to the Lord of the Flies • What issues or themes does the Lord of the Flies deal with that are addressed in the above articles?
What is Theme? • In literary studies concerning fiction, theme is about life and how people behave • The unifying or dominate idea • William Golding’s task in LOTF is to communicate a common ground with you, the reader • That is you extract characters, action and setting that make up the story and; • Repeating patters and symbols will sometimes lead you to the theme
Themes in LOTF…… • Primitive – means hunting, the desire for food, the desire for power, bloodlust, violence and a general inability to distinguish between man and beast • Question: are the boys reverting to their inferior state of life or are they driven to their natural and rightful states • “Jack began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling” Chapter 3
Innocence • A major theme where the boys leave the idealism of youth behind and face the actuality of the real world • The island represents innocence lost with no rules, restrictions and or adults that stripes them of youth, civilization and the reality they face is one of untamed human nature • “We’re all drifting and things are going rotten. At home there was always a grown-up. Please sir; please, miss: and then you got an answer. How I wish!” (101).
Rules & Order • The ethical nature of any society depends ultimately on the morality of its individual members • That is, humans are corrupt and inherently evil when they step outside of set boundaries that keep people true to their violent impulses • Without rules and order, chaos prevails when the boys destroy themselves reverting to their primitive attitudes and actions • Piggy shouted again before his death, “Which is better – to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?” (200).
Fear – False Evidence Appearing Real • The boys struggle with the fear of the unknown • They fear what they cannot see, unexplored parts of the island, the beast and the damage they have done to one another • The boys are blind to what is unknown and ignorant to their violent capabilities • “Desperately, Ralph prayed that the beast would prefer littluns” (184).
Power • The desire for power breaks down the boundaries set for rules and order causing the division of the boys in the form of competition • Ralph uses his power for good and Jack abuses his power for personal gain • “The chief snatched one of the few spears that were left and poked Sam in the ribs….What d’you mean by it, eh?” (202).
Identity • When the boys mask their identities to kill pigs as a hunting tactic, they are really masking their savage acts upon one another when they kill • The war paint sheds their civilization and they are all one in the same without their former identity • “But really, thought Ralph, this was not Bill. This was a savage whose image refused to blend with that ancient picture of a boy in shorts and shirt” (203).
Religion • The island can be seen as a Garden of Eden before it was corrupted by the boys and their evil activities (represented by the beast) and or (the snake-thing) • Pig Head on the stick represented as a God • Simon as a Christ figure murdered by the other boys
Wisdom and Knowledge • Characters like Simon are in the ‘know’ with important universal truths • Instead of trying to learn from characters like Simon they lash out with their counterparts such as Jack and Roger leaving themselves in the dark • The irony of wisdom is that killing the ‘knowing boys’ (Simon / Piggy) the naïve characters are keeping themselves in the dark because they bandwagon through fear and the unknown • “Simon was crying out something about a dead man on the a hill” (168).
