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ONE commentator says of the author of this novel: “Mr Golding knows exactly what boys are like; he has a compelling imagination and the vivid realism with which he describes the disintegration of their untried and precarious civilisation under the pressure of raw nature carries the reader to the bloody climax … a most absorbing and instructive tale.”
The boys described here are on a journey to self-realisation.
They want to discover themselves.
We get an idea of the original sin, an allusion from the Bible.
The fall of man from the estate wherein he was created.
Man was created in the image of God and placed in a pure, uncorrupted garden.
But with the coming in of sin man fell.
On the island the boys lived in perpetual fear.
They were afraid of a non-existent beast.
The little boys brought about the idea of the beast.
They would cry claiming to have seen the beast at night.
The bigger boys started believing in the beast which had to be hunted.
As we shall learn towards the end of the story the so-called beast never existed but was in the corrupted minds of the boys.
They were afraid of themselves.
What they discovered to be a beast at the end was just a dead body of a pilot, a victim of a plane crash which led to their being on the island.
Golding builds his story on the boys being moved from a war-torn country and dropped on a pure virgin island which has not been spoiled by human activity.
There are no human beings on the island when the boys arrive.
The island is undisturbed by human nature.
The little boys, the oldest being twelve years find themselves alone there.
The first impression they have is that they are going to have fun while waiting to be rescued from the island.
A fact is that there are no grown-ups on the island.
They have a strong belief that they would be rescued.
Ralph the oldest boy is convinced that they would be rescued because his father is a commander in the Navy.
He says he will know because they would tell him at the airport.
The realistic, fat boy, called Piggy is sceptical of what Ralph is saying because nobody knows that they are there.
Their country was attacked by an atomic bomb and everyone is dead.
According to Piggy they were informed by the pilot.
Piggy emphasises that they are on an island.
“They’re all dead,” said Piggy, “an’ this is an island.
Nobody don’t know we’re here.
Your dad don’t know, nobody don’t know.”
“We may stay here till we die.”
This was a possible reality as the writer emphasises it with the following words of tension.
“With that word the heat seemed to increase till it became a threatening weight and the lagoon attacked them with a blinding effulgence.”
Ralph is described as a boy with fair hair when the story opens.
He is immediately joined by Piggy who is shorter than the fair boy and very fat.
Piggy shows he is from a low class from the old-fashioned English he uses.
He says:
“We was attacked!”
He narrates to Ralph about the pilot in charge of the plane which dropped them on that island.
He says he must have flown off after he dropped them.
He could not land there, not in a plane with wheels.
Piggy continues: “When we was coming down I looked through one of them windows.
I saw the other part of the plane.
There were flames coming out of it.”
From the beginning Piggy wants to be Ralph’s true friend, but his gesture is not reciprocated.
When he asks for Ralph’s name he expects Ralph to do the same to him.
However, the latter does not make that proffer of acquaintance only smiled vaguely, stood up and began to make his way once more to the lagoon.
Piggy has infirmities which he is proud of.
He informs Ralph that his auntie told him not to run on account of his asthma.
He cannot catch his breath and he was the only boy in their school who had asthma.
“That’s right.
Can’t catch me breath.
I was the only boy in our school what had asthma,” said the fat boy with a touch of pride.
“And I’ve been wearing specs since I was three.”