A literary study on William Golding's classic novel 'Lord of the Flies'.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Connecting Chapter 8: Gift For the Darkness

In Chapter 8, the symbolization of the fire raging out of control comes true. The boys are splintered and cannot seem to work together. Jack stands up and asks if anyone wishes to join him, for he is leaving Ralph's group and will not be coming back. No boy joins him just then, but later on, they begin to slip away from Ralph and go join Jack. The boys are now divided.

It is so easy for something to rage out of control; a fire, a lie, a rumor, a person, a love, or even a group of boys. In high schools today, rumors are everywhere. Some may be true, others not. It's hard to know what's the truth and what's a lie. Rumors so easily get out of hand, and they often end up dividing friends in half, or hurting somebody a lot. They are not good. Just like the boys get divided because they cannot work together, friends get divided because of a silly mistake that everyone heard about. Everyone has experienced a rumor before, whether they are the teller, the victim, or just somebody along for the ride. They are not pleasant things.

It's also not safe for the boys to be divided. They need to work together to survive, and when they are splintered, their carefully structure system will fail or has failed. When countries have a civil war (e.g. Tutsi vs Hutu & North USA vs South USA) there are feelings of contention spread all around. The people get divided, when moments before they were an actual functioning country.

That's all I could relate to in Chapter 8. It was a hard one to connect with (I don't have epilepsy or know anyone who does...so I couldn't connect with Simon's part in the chapter. Sorry.)

Cheers.

1 comment:

Heather said...

The thing about rumours is that it doesn't really matter whether they're true or not. Even if the rumour is true, it doesn't mean it's any of your business. If someone wants you to know something or thinks it's important for you to know something, they will tell you. All rumours do is break up friendships and hurt feelings. As Kate said, they're dangerous things.