Cameron Santoro

4/10/14

Lord of the Flies Blog#2

Mr. Fernando

Loss of Humanity

Now we are starting to see whether the little civilization that the boys have created will do one of two things, prosper and preserve their humanity or fail and dehumanize them. Now the book would just be boring if the boys learn to survive with each other and wait to get rescued,  so there civilization falls. The collapse of their civilization doesn’t take away their humanity immediately though, this doesn’t come till Piggy’s death in chapter eleven. When they kill Piggy their dehumanization has been completed because they have deliberately killed a person. This fall into dehumanization really began when Jack killed the pig. This begins their descent into chaos because they are taking life for granted, killing the pigs on the island has desensitized them to violence and death, and the final push they need to fully become illiterate animals is found when they spill the blood of a person. When Piggy dies Jack and the hunters start to act very stupidly. This behavior is very comparable to what the American Indians acted like thousands of years ago. This how the dehumanization on the island finally occurs, an increased lust for blood from the murder of pigs directly results into the murder of fellow man.

Cameron Santoro

4/3/14

Lord of the Flies Blog

Mr.Fernando

Good vs Evil

In Lord of the Flies we have just started uncovering many themes in the story that have a deeper symbolism in the real world.  One of these themes that I have chosen to investigate and write about is one very interesting theme, the age old battle of good vs evil. Now we are start to see this theme evolve into the battle between the good that is Ralph and the bad that is Jack. This seeds to this battle was sewn in chapter four where Jack did his dirty trick on Piggy. This is how the battle of good vs evil begins. The philosophy of theses two characters also shows their moral standing, Ralph is the nurturing one and Jack is the big, mean, aggressive one. Detailed examples of this is shown when Jack gets mad at the little kids because they are scared of the beast. Jack says that the little kids should just shut up about the beast and grow up, clearly acting evil. However, Ralph says that what the kids should do is to just focus on surviving, causing them to be focused on this they will forget about the beast. But still, Jack holds more power than Ralph because symbolically it is easier to be be a bad guy than to be a good guy. But Ralph shows the kids that there is no beast and proves Jack wrong.