Question

What is "Lord of the Flies" about? How is the title related to the events in the movie?

Answer 1

Hint: Nobel Prize-winning British author William Golding is the author of the book.
The basic theme of the novel is the tension between rational and emotional reactions, and that between morality and immorality.

Complete answer:
The book is about a group of English boys who get stranded on an island. The book also addresses their disastrous attempt to govern themselves.

On this island the boys are free from the rules that adult society formerly imposed on them. The boys trapped on the island, struggle with the conflicting human instincts that exist in all of them. The author talks about the human instinct of working toward civilization and order or the instinct of descending into savagery, violence, and chaos.

Simon comes across the Lord of the Flies in a glade in the forest, and then he realizes that the Lord of the Flies is not even a physical entity. It was rather something that existed within each and every boy on that island. Simon attempts to approach the other boys and convey this message to them, but they all fall on him and kill him savagely.

The boys on the island cast Ralph and Piggy aside, and then descend further into chaos. Later in the book, the boys end up killing Piggy and destroying the conch shell. After this, Ralph runs from Jack’s tribe and comes across the naval officer on the beach.

Hence, we can say the title is related to the events in the movie because the term ‘Lord of the Flies’ refers to Beelzebub or the Devil, and in the story we see that the Lord of the Flies is in all the boys. It shows that there was a devil in all of them that eventually led them into savagery and chaos.

Note:
- In The novel the behavior of the boys, left on the island, degenerates until one of them is murdered.
- William Golding, the author through his book, argues that if man is left to his own devices, he will quickly degenerate into a person of such base and inhuman behavior.