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It's not that scarey, just a story about the degeneration of cultural behaviour when survival becomes more imortant. We did it fdor english class so I never finished it. I mean, the teacher stopped every time the word black was used. I thing she had lost the whole concept of reading for the story's sake.
Posts: 575 | Registered: Dec 2003
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For me, story is the main thing. If it can succeed with symbols, or any kind of Grand Meaning, more power to it - but if it sacrifices story for Grand Meaning, it's lost me.
I never did read Lord of the Flies in high school, but for some reason decided to read it about five years ago. I loved it.
Because I diligently ignore symbolism and meaning and focus on story, I am all the more impressed when a story that carries so much symbolic weight and meaning as Lord of the Flies really works as a story.
I also loved 1984 for the writing, and for the story - not for the sociopolitical whatever. That it works on that level, too, for so many people, is brilliant, but it's damn good even if you view it just as fiction, not as political commentary. Well, if you skip over the 100 page treatise in the middle, that is. Maybe it just seemed like 100 pages.
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I think symbolism works best when the reader isn't conscious of it -- so what symbol-seekers do, unless they do it AFTER the story is read, is not a good idea.
Posts: 2830 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Corky, The conche shell was there throughout the story. It was apparently a symbol of power and order to the boys. In the beginning, if you were holding the conche, you had the right to speak and everybody else had to listen.
Things slowly deterriorated on the island up to the point where the conche was destroyed, then the proverbial shit hit the fan (symbolizing the point at which civilization was lost).
I don't mind looking for symbols and discussing possible deeper meanings for stories, but I agree with Beth, if a work of fiction doesn't function as a story that can be enjoyed, then I think something is missing.
I read because I enjoy it. When it turns into a chore, I don't do it.
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I think that symbols are only ever one layer in a story. Stories work best for me when they are multi-layered. A good, enjoyable story is one layer . Symbols, themes, messages etc can be there or not as extra layers. I often put small ideas into my stories that only a few people will recognise--but I would never do that with a detail that was essential to understanding the story. I like to think that all readers should be able to enjoy what I've written, but some will get more out of it than others.
[This message has been edited by BuffySquirrel (edited September 15, 2005).]
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TI don't know that I'd reread Lord of the Flies just so I could participate in this discussion, though. It was a read-oncer for me. Been there, done that, don't really care to do it again. It, nor the movie, had any earth-shaking impact on me.
[This message has been edited by djvdakota (edited September 15, 2005).]
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I'm probably going to hate myself for even venturing into this topic, but the conche shell isn't an abstract literary symbol of "authority" or "civilization" or anything like that. It is recognized by the characters that this is a symbol of those things. The same thing is true of "the monster" and "the Lord of the Flies" (the pig's head).
Now, we enter a gray area when we talk about he symbolism of having "the monster" actually be a downed pilot, a casualty of the sudden war that has crashlanded the boys on this island. On the one hand, since only one of the boys consciously knows what it really is, and by consciously understanding it ceases to see it as "the monster", you could say that it is purely literary symbolism.
But the initial effect of horror that it has upon the boys is inextricably connected with the fact that they recognize that it is a dead man, and a pilot at that. They were in a plane crash, though it isn't a scene in the book, that experience is part of their collective psyche. The dead fighter pilot, horribly burned and yet granted a semblance of life by his useless parachute, is a grim reminder of what they cannot consciously grasp. That's why they react to it as they do.
The "Lord of the Flies" is only consciously appreciated as a symbol by one character, yet it is clear that the act of sticking a pig's head on a stick represents something significant within the hunters. And to place it on a stick like that meant they knew it to be symbolic, or at least unconsciously intended that it should be so.
Anyway I could go on, but my point is that sometimes a symbol is just a symbol In a book about sentient beings, there will be cases where the characters themselves see one thing as being a sort of prototype or herald or symbol of something else. That's different from a discussion of symbols that the characters themselves are not allowed to notice.
Oh, and it isn't like the entire book is told in one POV and then that shifts suddenly at the end. There are scenes from several different points of view throughout, along with some scrict limited and semi-omniscient scenes.
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. Symbols, themes, messages etc can be there or not as extra layers. I often put small ideas into my stories that only a few people will recognise--but I would never do that with a detail that was essential to understanding the story. I like to think that all readers should be able to enjoy what I've written, but some will get more out of it than others.
In a book about sentient beings, there will be cases where the characters themselves see one thing as being a sort of prototype or herald or symbol of something else. That's different from a discussion of symbols that the characters themselves are not allowed to notice.
