It is not hard to misjudge Lord of the Flies. You look at the cover, you see “Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature”, and you build a whole bunch of expectations about it instead of just opening it and falling inside its world. False expectations on my behalf was what made the beginning disappointing for me. I had read so many reviews of Lord of the Flies talking about the revealing of the savage human nature and the grotesqueness of the severe violence exhibited by these little boys that I almost expected them to start killing each other in chapter one. The brilliance of this book, however, is in the gradual seemingly normal and yet vicious change in the characters from regular British schoolboys to fierce savages. I believe that this slow transition is what makes this book so real and frightening – because after getting to “live” with them on that island for more than half of the chapters and getting to see how normal they used to be, you realise that this could have happened to anyone, no matter how normal they appeared, in similar conditions. The very ending was the most brutal and grotesque part for me – it felt like reality had slapped me in the face only to highlight further the barbarity of what had happened on that island. And when compared to a game, everything seemed so ridiculous and surreal that it made me burst into a bitter laughter.
Literary-wise I think Lord of the Flies is brilliant, but I definitely don’t believe it’s for everyone. Personally, I don’t think I will ever re-read it – the emotions it evoked in me were too strong and rather negative and honestly I wouldn’t want to live through them again. Should you read it? I think everyone should give it a go – but start without any expectations and prejudice, just read what’s written and see what you make of it yourself.
Literary-wise I think Lord of the Flies is brilliant, but I definitely don’t believe it’s for everyone. Personally, I don’t think I will ever re-read it – the emotions it evoked in me were too strong and rather negative and honestly I wouldn’t want to live through them again. Should you read it? I think everyone should give it a go – but start without any expectations and prejudice, just read what’s written and see what you make of it yourself.