Childhood Lotf Essay Research Paper Lord of

Childhood -Lotf Essay, Research Paper

Lord of the Flies

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 them. Jack is very forceful and

his ways most likely remind the boys of authoritative figures in their

pastwho may have strapped, beaten or used other forms of violence when

disciplining the children. Therefore, the children when left without

adult authority figures turn to others who can replace that adult

authority figure.

In addition to seeking adult-like a

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