The Presentation and the Significance of the Events in the Final Chapter of William Goldings Lord of the Flies

The Presentation and the Significance of the Events in the Final Chapter of William Goldings Lord of the Flies

William Golding's novel 'Lord of the Flies' reflects the author's

insight into the way that children behave. He suggests that evil is

innate in everyone and reflects this in the unfolding story. World war

II affected Golding and his outlook on human nature became

pessimistic.

The novel is about a group of boys who are the survivors of a plane

crash. The boys land on a deserted island. The boys call meetings and

Ralph is elected leader. Jack is allowed to lead his choir as hunters

for the group. The boys build a signal fire on top of a mountain.

Ralph asserts himself as leader and sets out some rules and

regulations. A dead pilot parachutes onto the island and the boys

believe he is a 'beast'. They try to hunt the 'beast'. The boys have

more meetings, which confirms Ralph as leader, but Jack gets angry and

sets up his own rival group at Castle Rock. Jacks group hunt a pig for

the celebration later, and kill a pig in front of Simon in his special

place and leave it's severed head as a gift for the 'beast'. Simon has

a fit, and hallucinates a conversation with the 'lord of the Flies'.

He falls unconscious. When he awakens he returns to tell the others

that the 'beast' was only a parachutist, but is killed when he

stumbles into a celebration dance. Piggy is killed by Roger who

levered a huge rock on top of him. Jack and his gang hunt Ralph; they

burn the bushes to flush him out on...

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... the presentation changes to make it more interesting and gripping to

read. This is a significant chapter because this is when the

characters find out how evil is within them, and when they lose their

childish innocence. In the middle of the book Golding uses the

description of the hunters as 'savages', but when the adult appears at

the end of the novel he calls them all little 'boys'. This is clearly

noticeable when an adult is placed in the picture with them, showing

that children aren't thought of as old enough to deal with the trauma

of 3 people dying, survival, and how they were lucky to have survived

for this long. At the end Ralph realizes that he knows too much about

the world and what is happening around him he realizes that it is not

the perfect world that he thought it was when he first landed on the

island.