Marlowe Essays - English-language Films, Allegory, Lord Of The Flies

Marlowe Annonymous Children all over the world hold many of the same characteristics. Most children are good at heart, but at times seem like little mischievous devils. Children enjoy having fun and causing trouble but under some supervision can be obedient little boys an d girls. Everybody, at one time in their lives, was a child and knows what it is like to have no worries at all. Children have their own interests and react to different things in peculiar and sometimes strange ways. For example, children are enchanted with Barney and his jolly, friendly appearance without realizing that he is actually a huge dinosaur. In the novel The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, one can see how children react to certain situations. Children, when given the opportunity, wo uld choose to play and have fun rather than to do boring, hard work. Also, when children have no other adults to look up to they turn to other children for leadership. Finally, children stray towards savagery when they are w! ithout adult authority. Therefore, Golding succeeds in effectively portraying the interests and attitudes of young children in this novel. When children are given the opportunity, they would rather envelop themselves in pleasure and play than in the stresses of work. The boys show enmity towards building the shelters, even though this work is important, to engage in trivial activities. Af ter one of the shelters collapses while only Simon and Ralph are building it, Ralph clamours, All day I've been working with Simon. No one else. They're off bathing or eating, or playing. (55). Ralph and Simon, though only children, are more mature a nd adult like and stray to work on the shelters, while the other children aimlessly run off and play. The other boys avidly choose to play, eat, etc. than to continue to work with Ralph which is very boring and uninteresting. The boys act typically of m ost children their age by being more interested in having fun than working. Secondly, all the boys leave Ralph's hard-working group to join Jack's group who just want to have fun. The day after the death of Simon when Piggy ! and Ralph are bathing, Piggy points beyond the platform and says, That's where they're gone. Jack's party. Just for some meat. And for hunting and for pretending to be a tribe and putting on war-paint.(163). Piggy realizes exactly why the boys have gone to Jack's, which would be for fun and excitement. The need to play and have fun in Jack's group, even though the boys risk the tribe's brutality and the chance of not being rescued, outweighs doing work with Ralph's group which increase their chance s of being rescued. Young children need to satisfy their amusement by playing games instead of doing work. In conclusion, children are more interested in playing and having fun than doing unexciting labor. When children are without adults to look to for leadership, they look for an adult-like person for leadership. At the beginning of the novel, when the boys first realize they are all alone, they turn to Ralph for leadership. After Ralph calls the first meeting, Golding writes, There was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size, and attractive appearance, and most obscurely, yet most powerfully, there was the conch. The being that had sat waiting for them. (24). The b oys are drawn to Ralph because of his physical characteristics and because he had blown the conch. The fact that there are no adults has caused the boys to be attracted to Ralph as a leader. The physical characteristics of Ralph remind the boys of their parents or other adult authority figures they may have had in their old lives back home. There is also the conch that Ralph holds which may remind the boys of a school bell or a teacher's whistle. Finally, at the end of the! novel, the boys turn to Jack to satisfy their need for some much-needed leadership. When the boys are feasting on the meat of a freshly killed sow, the narrator says: Jack spoke 'Give me a drink.' Henry brought him a shell and he drank. Power lay in the blown swell of his forearms; authority sat on his shoulder and chattered in his ear like an ape. 'All sit down.' The boys ranged themselves in rows on the grass before him. (165) Jack now has full authority over the other boys. The boys look to Jack for his daunting leadership which intimidates