William Golding’s classic Lord of the Flies probably isn’t the best book to read if you want to feel good about humanity or feel comfortable looking after a family of young children on your own on a Friday night. It’s also not a good beach read for pig lovers. Instead, it’s a hard-hitting allegorical look at what can happen when the law and order of civilization disappears, and humanity is left to its own bestial instincts.
Lord of the Flies tells the story of a group of British children stranded on a remote island, without adult supervision, mind you, in the Pacific Ocean after their plane crashes. The children, who range from six to twelve years old, have to fend for themselves. They try to establish order and strategies to increase their chances of survival and maybe rescue, but since kids will always be kids, they become stubborn (pun definitely intended) about what’s most important: maintaining a steady signal fire. to alert passing boats or violently hunting the poor mother pigs. Naturally, two headstrong boys leading each respective cause, Ralph and Jack, disagree, and the battle for power on the island begins.
The most memorable point in the book is the enduring image of the rotting pig’s head, aptly named “Lord of the Flies” (you can probably guess why). Since the novel really stands as an allegory, the pig’s head is typically read as a potent symbol of the evil savagery found within all human beings. After all, a pack of twelve-year-old feral children killed, beheaded, and violently skewered the pig’s head as a skewer to make an offering to the imaginary beast everyone fears. Childish innocence? No. There’s no such thing, unless you count Simon and Piggy, but no one ever counts Piggy. In fact, poor little Simon, who is arguably a symbol of human goodness as he suggests that the beast is “only us”, hallucinates that the rotten pig’s head is speaking to him, saying “Imagine thinking that the Beast is something you could hunt.” and kill… You knew that, right? Am I part of you? This instinctive savagery, says the pighead, is an inevitable part of the human psyche and experience, just like death. One could easily recall the quotes from Hamlet and that iconic scene when Hamlet is pondering and turning over a human skull in his hands, pontificating on how death can easily reduce life and reason to a heap of discarded bones, just like the Beast. you can narrow down a group of suitable British lads to complete wild.
In fact, Shakespeare was a big fan of investigating the internal struggles and evils that exist within us mere humans, as well as how our heads mess up our perception of reality. Enter Macbeth. This Scottish kingslayer is no different than those island children, losing their minds, literally and figuratively, due to his thirst for power that drove him to commit ruthless murder. In the Macbeth recap, the Scottish nobleman encounters a trio of prophesying witches after kicking ass on the battlefield while fighting for King Duncan, and even disemboweling a guy. It’s probably no coincidence that we hear about Macbeth gutting a guy before we’ve actually met, which gives us an idea of what to expect. Regardless, the encounter with the witch causes Macbeth’s ambition to boil. He ends up killing King Duncan in his sleep (prompted by his famously emasculating wife, Lady Macbeth), becomes king, and then begins killing everyone he deems a threat, including the entire family of another Scottish nobleman, Macduff. What an idiot
The play ends with Macbeth’s severed head served to King Duncan’s surviving sons by Macduff, having properly avenged his family and restored order. Again with the heads. While a decapitated pig’s head symbolizes our inner beast, Macbeth’s bloody head suggests the consequences of giving in to that inner beast too easily, causing us humans to lose our minds. If both a bunch of tween kids and a Scottish nobleman were able to wreak so much havoc due to their evil inner ambitions, surely all of humanity can. Drink.