Frankenstein And Lord Of The Flies Comparison Essay

In Rod Serling’s 1960 episode of ‘Monsters are due on Maple Street’ and William Golding’s Noble Prize winning 1945 novel, ‘Lord of the Flies’ are both used to show the concept that mankind is its own worst enemy. Even though both stories are extremely different both of the authors realised the issue of humanity and wrote compelling pieces to show their ideas through the darkness of the mind, the actions and the words of mankind. These three things are used in both pieces to express to the audience that our world is a violent and vicious place and the human race is the real enemy. In both Lord of the Flies and Monsters are due on Maple Street there was shown to be an external danger that caused the people to be scared yet in both scenarios

Both authors use their pieces to show their audience how powerful words can be and how they create enemy's and destroy people. In Monsters are due on Maple Street Serling creates a scene where an angry group of neighbours verbally attack an innocent man, Less Goodman. They yell at Less calling him and his family "oddballs" and show him a single close up shot whereas the mob is shown as a large group in a wide angle shot. This is purposely done to show that Less Goodman is being victimised by the mob's brutal words. This is a parallel scenario to Lord of the Flies when Piggy is being victimised by the group of boys. The group of boys all laugh at Piggy calling him "fatty" and joke about his "ass-mar." Piggy is left feeling hurt and miserable and through this Golding shows that mankind's words are like weapons that shoot and tear people down. Serling himself says that "tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions" but the "weapons that are simply thought, attitudes, prejudices" are “to be found only in the minds of men." Both Serling and Golding come to the conclusion that words are weapons and that mankind's true enemy is