If you enjoy Adventure books that have a real knack of grabbing your attention and sending shivers down your spine, then The Lord of The Flies by William Golding is the book for you.
The book begins with a horrific plane crash on an island in the middle of nowhere and the only survivors, a group of schoolboys, Jack, Ralph, Piggy and others group up together on the beach and wait to be rescued. During the day they are surrounded by bright, multicoloured and vibrant animals, but during the night their visions are haunted by the image of a petrifying beast.
Jack, who is strongly addicted to hunting, brings up the inhumane idea of hunting down and killing the beast, whilst Ralph, who is the peacemaker in the group tries to persuade Jack that his hunting idea is a waste of time.
Their different approaches start to cause a major conflict in the group, resulting in Jack breaking away from the group and taking several boys with him to start up his own tribe where hunting is the main daily activity. Jack's tribe kill a boy called Simon. They lose all sense of decency and civilization as the savages that Jack's tribe become try with an enormous amount of effort to kill Ralph and Piggy as well.
Piggy, who is eventually killed, is treated horribly by the boys and is rated as an outsider in the group. This is demonstrated in many different ways: for example, Piggy is teased constantly by the boys when Ralph accidentally tells the boys to call him Piggy, because of how chubby he is and because of his asthma problems. When Jack steals his glasses to enable him to make a fire, Piggy can't see, and this is why he falls off a cliff.
What William Golding is expressing in this book is how easily people lose all sense of civilization and common decency towards others, like when Jack did all those horrible things to Piggy. Jack's passion for hunting and killing inspires him and the boys in his tribe and their minds to turn from those of normal people into savages.
By Ian Keir
