I had never enjoy such story. I tried many ways to avoid read it when it happened to be my assignment. In the end i decided to read this book in Chinese so i don't have to go through the book word by word and worry about lose some detail.
Symbols, Christams, Killing, illusion,hopless... All those elements make me less interesting this book. Luckly my grades look fine.
It is the best world-known symbolism work of Williams Golding. I have approached to the black-and-white film in 1963 of the same name at the first place, which struck me an unexpected terror – A group of children were landed on an uninhabited island, and later pureness turned to evil, civil men changed to savages. Children in their teens proclaiming no devil killed some among them due to their terrors and their different choices between democracy and dictatorship in an endless waiting for rescue. A non-existent, imaginary beast scared them. Dictatorship promised to offer them food and the killing of the beast, while democracy advocated to build rules to operate every aspect of life on the island. The former needed no assistance from the latter, while the latter fantasied the former might obey the rules and together built a better island world.
When inventing this work, Williams Golding was a teacher at school, where, I guess, drew some ideas from his teaching life. School life could be cruel, for tall, strong students might bully those who are short and thin. Strengthen makes sense instead of rational minds. Just as the story on the island went, the fight between them bore high possibility of transferring to a horrible disaster as time goes by.
Three main roles were included in this book. One was Ralph, the representative of democracy. The second was Piggy, the symbol of wisdom. And Jack was the rest, the dictatorship. Among them, I favor Piggy and it was hard to tell Williams Golding’s preference.
The writer was tricky - did not reveal the exact number and each and every name of children and even among those whose names had already told, Piggy’s real name remained unknown. Instead, just tell Piggy’s nickname (That was Piggy). The symbol of wisdom shown in a nickname in the work, which revealed in the island, or a society without rules, demonstrated no respect at all for wisdom. No mater Ralph and Jack, they both ignored Piggy. Luckily Ralph changed his attitude after long-term observation, but Jack didn’t.
Hither and thither lied Piggy’s movement of rubbing his spectacles. In modern society, spectacles mean civil behavior, good manner, etc. When do they need rubbing? It must has been that they are stained by mud, water or mist. Wiping off these is just like let nothing lead your movement but your brain(wisdom).
Wisdom is invisible but useful. Once it was practiced, it would have changed a lot. In most cases, those who are wise, offer their wisdom to leaders, and leaders practiced it, take Liang Zhuge. Wisdom type would prefer to stay behind leaders, known as think tank, rather than implement their sensible thoughts. This is a quite commonplace phenomenon.
Piggy’s wisdom amazed me, like recommending making a sundial with a stick stabbing firmly on the stand for time counting, but lack of confidence was Piggy's weakness, which increased wisdom’s yielding. A not-good body condition-obesity and asthma weakened his confidence, even prevented him from building a leader-like image in front of the other children. The leader-like type appearance has already set a deep root at the bottom of people’s minds. Confidence ranks first and Piggy was definitely out of league. Physical attraction of body really counts.
From above, the magic of symbolism hides in connections. When there is an object, there bears a chance for giving symbolism by your own to guess what and how the writer symbolize one abstract thing with another actual thing. The guess journey sent out fun to every reader - everyone has their own answer first, and then checks them with that of the writer.
Here is my other symbolism guess about Piggy.
1. Piggy got his nicknames because his obesity, which symbolizes that wisdom wins no respect.
2. Every time Piggy wiping off the things that covered his spectacles, it implicated the contrary situation between democracy and dictatorship varied.
3.”Piggy threw a picked bone down on the beach and stooped for more.” quoted from page 209. He was invited to Jack’s party for food. “Stooped for more” described a sad picture. Without reaching the basic standard of life, say food, mental part couldn’t show its amazing ability.
4. Piggy‘s aunt seemed like own more wisdom. In Piggy’s eyes, she is so knowledgeable existence.
5. Piggy’s death represented the end of the democracy world. Piggy was Ralph’s die-hard follower- wisdom supports democracy. However, democracy couldn’t live without wisdom. In the work, Ralph was the only one left about democracy, being hunting by Jack and his people. Finally, he got caught. Fortunately, the moment they wanted to kill Ralph, an adult, the lifesaver landed the island!
6. Piggy’s hair seemed like didn’t grow. The others on the island went wild hairstyle after a long duration of not cutting their hair. Savage looks like that way. The writer implanted his great expectations on Piggy that a man fledged with wisdom was supposed to maintain his gentleman appearance.
7. Piggy’s asthma blocked his way of becoming a leader symbolically. To call an assembly a conch was blowed by the leader, but Piggy rejected to blow it for his asthma’s sake. It was set by the writer that he destined to be a man behind a leader.
Once you have read a symbolism work, in your eyes, whatever factors in the passage could be used to tell something in screct. It could be the case that you sometimes set up mysterious connections between A and C, even it may seem meaningless in others’ opinions. Yet that connection setting-up frequently pushes you to think, wins you fun. As a saying goes, every picture tells a story! In symbolism world, every factor bears some implication!
This book is about revelation of the dark side of the human nature, about how reason succumbs to savageness and how a civilised society dismantles into pieces of brutality. The chiefdom consisting school boys in the novel is an allegory of human society in general. But the difference between the novel and the real life is that, in the former, the salvation lies in the rescue of an adult marine officer whereas in the adults' world, they can only count on themselves, if rescue exists at all.
關(guān)于幾個人物的思考。
Ralph
他是leader,是faith。幾乎每一頁都能看到他的名字。他看似順理成章的成為了leader。其實他未嘗不算個自然而然脫穎而出的領(lǐng)導者:有很明確的目的性。有很強的權(quán)威欲望和自負。有強悍的體力、毅力以震懾那幫littluns甚至同齡人;足夠的責任心和膽量(這也許也是和他的權(quán)威欲望分不開的,因為不是所有這樣的人都樂于擔任leader。而ralph,無疑是享受這個角色的)——敢于去承擔開拓的、出頭的任務。堅定的信念——即使在明顯弱勢的時候也能去捍衛(wèi)自己所信仰的一切。幾乎沒有看到他動搖,即使偶有猶豫,幾乎很快就會被怒氣覆蓋變成凌厲的反擊。
也正是因為如此,他與jack似乎是有connection的。因為性格的相似,和信念的絕對背馳。
但也不得不說,最體現(xiàn)ralph孩子氣的,也是他的所謂“領(lǐng)導藝術(shù)”。他順其自然的當領(lǐng)導,順其自然的做決定,順其自然的打壓“異己”,卻從未想到過如何疏導那些反對意見,如何利用那些反對力量,如何融合這個團體。
Piggy
他是law。他的角色,是jack完全的對立面。不象ralph那么模糊。也正是他,最早顯示出對jack的抱怨、不滿與恐懼。他和ralph加起來,倒算得上是有勇有謀了。這也許是最有智慧的孩子。他知道靠逃避靠一盤散沙大家無法活下去,他知道必須有人組織有人領(lǐng)導。他的形象也是很可愛的:傻傻胖胖,戴著眼睛。任何這樣的孩子都會顯得文縐縐。他也確實是這樣,他是“l(fā)aw”的建設者和堅定的執(zhí)行者、推崇者。這一點甚至遠勝ralph。Ralph只知道讓大家聽從他的安排,他其實沒有什么規(guī)則的概念,或者說沒有建設規(guī)則的能力。他與piggy是相輔相成的——有enforcement,有l(wèi)aw,缺一不可。就仿佛國家機器,泛泛而言,武裝力量與法律。沒有武裝力量的震懾,法律只是一紙空文;沒有法律,武裝力量建立了絕對控制權(quán),也無法做到真正意義上的“統(tǒng),治”。正所謂打江山容易守江山難吧。
所以只有piggy,law的忠實粉絲,從始至終都在爭?。汉B菰谖沂掷??該我說話!他很有腦子,既是生氣或者難過的時候。他總能為ralph出謀劃策,該做什么,該安排什么。他的鏡片帶來了火。帶來了獲救的希望,帶來了無情的殺戮。沒有眼鏡,他看不清周圍的世界。最后,他也死在了一片模糊當中?;蛘哒f,那時候,臨死前他依然堅持的:高舉海螺,高喊“what is better? Law and rescue? Or…”猶如螳臂擋車困獸猶斗的微弱一搏。他已經(jīng)看不清周圍的世界有多么可怕,他還妄想用語言喚醒同伴的良知,殊不知,對于那些人,語言已經(jīng)是多余的東西了,有手勢、擬聲詞幫助他們圍追堵截任何他們所視為獵物的東西,無論人或獸,就足夠了。
但是他太沉浸于文明世界帶給他的規(guī)則,當野蠻求生的人奪得了他身上唯一的物質(zhì)價值——能生火的鏡片——他的存在也就毫無價值了。所以他與大海螺一起粉身碎骨。。。因為這個島上再也沒有他和他所代表的law的容身之地。
The writing style of Lord of the Flies is rich and dark, which I mean indirect and implicit, unlike Camus, Golding has his own change of points of views or perspective shifting.We can find a variety of implicit allegories,illustrations,plot and utterances.
Well, Maybe they are right —— Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.