Beelzebub

Just finished "Lord of the flies" the magnum opus of Sir William Golding. Its a good example of an allegorical novel. Its the story of a group of young boys stranded in an island after a plane crash. Leaders emerge from the group along with establishment of law and order. Naturally, there arouse two groups due to the difference in priorities and eventually everything end up in chaos.

The story line may sound familiar (with several TV serials adopting similar story line), but the story itself mean very little. You may have to read the book carefully to get a full grasp of the story and you may find each character in the novel symbolises different things. The major characters of the novels ( and what I think they represent) are:

Ralph: is a natural leader. He symbolizes logical thinking, hope, rules, sanity and laws in a civilization. He make use of 'The Conch' (found by Piggy) and use it as symbol for law and order (only one person at a time, who has the conch should speak). He convene meetings and tries to establish democracy. Interestingly Ralph derives from the word meaning 'Counsel' in some language.
Piggy: Piggy is friend of Ralph and often a target of mockery and joke in the group. He represent reasoning and knowledge. He advices Ralph on several occasions. Piggy wears spectacle which the group uses to make fire in the island. The original purpose was to make smoke to get attention of some ships and thus get rescued. During the evolution of the social system, one glass of piggies specs will get broken, symbolizing loss of reasoning as chaos take over law and order in a society.

Jack: Jack also is a leader. However, believe in enforcing his leadership onto others on contrary to more democratic approach by Ralph. He symbolizes the inherent savagery that exist in every human beings.

Simon: Simon is the enlightened one. He listen to voice and follow his own voice. He is the one who found out that the "beast" that all boys are afraid of is a parachute stuck up among wood. But while trying to explain the truth to the savage group, he gets killed.

There are other symbolic characters in the story. As Sir Golding himself said, the correct interpretation of the story is the one that occur to the reader after going through the novel for the first time. To me the story remind me of the savagery that we all carry within us. It is not so long ago that our ancestors hunted for food and killed for survival and territories. The evolution was brutal, how many species have become extinct? how many lives have destroyed ? It is only those who were fit and lucky survived. The spirits of those killed by mother nature far outnumber the surviving souls. At the end of the day all that matter was whether I am alive or not.

Sir Golding adapted the name 'Lord of the flies' from the Hebrew word 'Beelzebub' which also mean 'Satan'. At the leisure of lack of adult supervision a group of cultured British boys completely turn into a primitive tribal group who started hunting down fellow humans and started stone age rituals and communication. More interestingly, the story also gave a hint on the probable beginning of belief in supernatural power and idol worships. At one point in the story, Jack behead a sow and stick it on a spear as an obeisance to the 'beast' that all the boys are afraid of (which in reality is a dead parachute diver). He explains that by doing so the beast would spare the tribe of trouble.

In wild we all are animals. It is the society and the rules implemented by the "group" for the betterment of the society that restrains the animosity within us. The law and order has to be implemented by force. We humans are still way far away from being mature to behave responsibly in the absence of a watch dog. We many never be one, because power always corrupts!