The Lord of the Flies

[Jasper]

When I was eight, as punishment for being a little terror (since I constantly stayed in trouble and tried to prank everyone in the house) my older sister decided to let me watch The Lord of the Flies. I sat down on the couch thinking that everything was fine, since it was just a movie about kids--based on a book about kids--like she'd told me. After it was over I was so upset and disgusted with what I watched that I was a little down for a while. Piggy was my favorite character and I hated that he--and the other innocent kids--died the way they did. I thought about Piggy's head getting smashed for weeks. Every time I looked at my classmates and we had to pick teams for P.E., I thought of Ralph and Jack with the whole choosing sides thing because everyone wanted to be on the school bullies team, since he acted the strongest. My school bully reminded me so much of Jack.

Eventually when I was around twelve, after my sister had jokingly brought the incident of torture up again, I went searching for a copy of the book in the house. My parents kept plenty of classics. When I did find it, I decided to compare and contrast between the books and what I remembered from the movie. To find out that the deaths were raw and worse compared to what I had seen was disheartening. It kind of shattered me that the kids died like they were disposable, and that the remaining ones were acting like savages, but the themes were loud and clear. I think reading it at that time struck a cord with me because the kids were around my age.


So, what was your reaction like when you read The Lord of the Flies for the first time? How old were you? What are your thoughts on it?

[Fran]

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