A Real ‘Lord of the Flies’

It’s a much better story.

10 comments:

David Foster said...

At about the same time "Lord of the Flies" came out, Robert Heinlein published a novel called "Tunnel in the Sky." As in LOTF, a group of kids are marooned for a long time, what looks like it may be forever...in this case, on a distant planet. Heinlein's kids are somewhat older, high-school age, and include both boys and girls. And in Heinlein's story, the kids succeed in establishing a viable society, although with some problems, conflicts, and almost-failures along the way.

Apparently *not* written as a specific response to LOTF, but functions as a pretty good one...the real-life case is even better.

Gringo said...

I read Lord of the Flies for a 9th grade Politics class. The book did not impress me upon later reflection- though it did impress me at the time I read it.

While I had observed in my short life ample evidence of the cruelty of children, the book seemed to go overboard. Yes, children can be cruel, but they also can be kind.

In addition, I had plenty of experience in kid's governing themselves- in our pickup games of baseball, football, or basketball. Bullies did not dominate those games. We cooperated rather well. There was no point in gaining a temporary advantage one day, as you could get your comeuppance the next day.

I did not articulate these points at the time I read the book. At the time I thought it was a good read. It took years for those points to percolate in my mind.

In my college days, a peer complained to me that Lord of the Flies was not at his high school. I don't recall if that meant that it wasn't read in class, or if it was not in the school library. I replied that if he hadn't read the book, he hadn't missed much. Not that I had a problem with his reading it, mind you.

Grim said...

I think LotF was written out of the same set of concerns about the irrational evils lurking in the subconscious that was driving Freudians (who were much more important in 1950 than today, thank goodness). Those theories turn out to be wrong, which is a good thing for humanity.

Anonymous said...

The high school students I know detest LotF, if only because it is required reading. It also doesn't "jive" with what I've observed. (Although it might say more about English school training than about teenaged boys in general.)

LittleRed1

David Foster said...

"Although it might say more about English school training than about teenaged boys in general."

When I was in France in 2001, I had the honor of spending some time with Francis Cammaerts, who in WWII had been Special Operations Executive organizer for resistance activities throughout much of southern France. He had attended an English boarding school before the war, and was quite clear about what an unpleasant experience it had been. After all those years...fighting the Nazis, losing friends, being captured and coming very close to himself being shot, and, postwar, building and running schools in Africa...the negative climate at that school still stood out in his memory.

Orwell, also, had some very negative things to say about these schools.

raven said...

Great story, thanks for posting it!

Larry said...


"Although it might say more about English school training than about teenaged boys in general."

C. S. Lewis felt much the same as Orwell about English boarding schools. Late in life in a letter to a child who had read the Chronicles of Narnia he said, “I was at three schools (all boarding schools) of which two were very horrid. I never hated anything so much, not even the front lines trenches in World War I. Indeed the story is far too horrid to tell anyone of your age.”

J Melcher said...

Of "old school" British pedagogy then, what explains the attraction of Hogwarts?

Texan99 said...

It's interesting that Hogwarts has some serious baddies, but also a solid core of adults playing for the right team, and trusting their pupils to be playing for the right team, too. That was my favorite part of the HP movies (I can't appreciate the books).

I don't recall whether I ever read LOTF, or just read about it so much that it seems familiar. "Tunnel in the Sky," however, I've read half a dozen times, probably. Great yarn. Heinlein shared that attitude of expecting youngsters to be fully moral agents, not to mention courageous and self-reliant.

I was just reading about the kids shipwrecked on the island near Tonga. If the book were already out, especially on Audiobooks, I'd already be listening to it as I repaint my porch. I'm amazed I'd never heard of these kids before. Sometime in the last year or so I read a good account of a dozen or more shipwrecked groups, an analysis of which did the best and why. Good leadership, cohesion, and morale were the ticket. If they didn't pull together, they died. Some groups, like Shackleton's, did phenomenally well.

ymarsakar said...

It depends on the quality of the souls in the human body. If the children are wanderers or more advanced, they have a chance. If the majority or all are organic portal npcs... well, so long as the leader is sane, they still have a chance. Otherwise, no.