Analyse af 'Lord of the Flies'

“Lord of the Flies” is a book where the story could be both facts and fiction. It was written during the Cold War and it is a contemporary story, it is happening at the same time as it was written. A plane, with a bunch of evacuated British school boys, crashes on a desert island. The pilot dies, he was the only adult aboard the plane, and they are “left” alone.

During their unwilling stay at the island they build up a society and all of the boys individually changes. Almost from the beginning a 12-year old boy called Ralph takes the leading role. Another boy, Jack, is the leader of a group of older boys that sang in a choir back home. Because of his choir he finds himself as the obvious leader but after Ralph made a proposal for a vote, all of the boys chose him as the leader. A bit younger boy, Piggy, sort of joins him in the leadership and becomes his kind of spin-doctor. He finds a conch which becomes a very central object in the story. Piggy suggests to make it a “talking-stick” like in the old African tribes, because it makes them even across age and authority. When someone holds it, he has the right to speak while everyone else is silent. Ralph approves the idea because he sees as a way to get order. This, and the vote for a leader, is signs of his democratic thinking. Everyone can say whatever they want and everybody else has to listen. Jack is not a supporter of this rule because he wants to control the others and as a respond he makes his own little group, “The Hunters”, so he can have some power anyway. He is in unlimited control of this group. Through the book he becomes more and more eager for the power, and towards the end he makes his own group at “The Rock” where he is the sole ruler. It satisfies him to be the most dominating, he makes himself the dictator. They all, except for Ralph, Piggy and a pair of twins, submit to him because he gives them a “feeling of security” because he can kill the beast they think are on the island. Ralph insists to stick with rules about the conch, and Piggy supports him, but Jack has a way of convincing the others that Ralph cannot compete with.