One Good Thing: LotF

God leads me everyday on the journey of life, and when people tell me that I am believing in something that doesn’t exist, I laugh and turn away from them. Because the odds of all the topics that we are learning and discussing all of a sudden being some of the most prevalent things in my life even before we started reading Lord of the Flies isn’t just coincidence, it’s purposeful. Things in my life happen for a reason, and this is what helps me get through the worst of times. It is one of many of my morals, and it is part of my very being. My morals shape my soul, they define my beliefs, and they fill the cracks and crevices in my life. The worst periods in my life are cushioned, the worst people in my life are forgiven, and the worst things I’ve done are learned from and left behind in my past.

Immediately with not only reading the book, but looking at the cover, I received not only a bad gut feeling, but one of those shivers you get once in awhile at random times. But like I said previously, I believe in a lot of things, but coincidences are very rarely things I even begin to consider. For myself, I tend to have shivers if I am in the presence of something sinful. At first sight of the cover, I thought it was a just a large fly with a fat boy on the cover. But as soon as it was explained to me that this fly wasn’t a normal fly but was in fact Beelzebub, then that Beelzebub was another translation for Lord of the Flies, and even worse was that Beelzebub was another name for the devil. In that moment I had no doubt as where the shiver had come from.

With the missing information filled in, I started connecting the dots. So many sins are committed in this book, including but not limited to gluttony, envy, greed, sloth, pride, and wrath. The only sin of the seven sins that I don’t see present on the island would be lust, but I’m sure with time and thought you could argue that lust is present as well. With all of this sin, it would be easy to simply connect it all in the point of “sin is really prevalent”. But that would be too easy, considering that characters like Roger exist in LotF. Instead, I will do my best to point out the best in this book, proving that no darkness can withstand light, and that at least some good morals can be taught from this book.

There is no character in this book who has not sinned in some way or form, but some have sinned less than others. Everyone took part in Simon's death, and what a gruesome death that was, as when Simon tumbled down to the beach everyone “...surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore” (Golding 153). For a book lasting roughly 208 pages and being read by ninth graders, this is pretty descriptive, more descriptive then I would have liked. But it is necessary to show that everyone committed murder, but not only murder but a brutal, horrible killing of man.

Why do I point this out, you may ask? The morning after Simon's death, the book continues with Ralph, Simon, Sam, and Eric at the beach by the pool. The mood is solemn, and Ralph keeps bringing up Simon, while the other boys have already have seemed to make peace with his death already. After bringing up his death multiple times, Piggy, Sam, and Eric finally manage to get Ralph to stop bringing up the subject, but only after making excuses, as “Memory of the dance that none of them had attended shook all four boys convulsively. ‘We left early’” (Golding 158). The one good thing that I pull out of this is that Ralph felt guilt. It shows that he is human, and guess who made us human, with these tendencies such as having guilt? God. It shows that we as humans can recover through learning from our mistakes and finding forgiveness in ourselves and our savior. At the root of ourselves, when everything else is eroded away, there will always be God.

Moving forward in the story, to the point where savagery has clung to most of the boys and has seeped into their minds, everyone seems to have lost their minds as they all have joined Jack's tribe and appointed Roger as the person to torture people. Sam and Eric have been captured, and Roger and his evil tendencies have been put into use to teach them a lesson on obeying Jack. Not much is written about that part, but it seems that he did some pretty wacky things. With Ralph being the only presumed kid who hasn’t joined Jack's band now, he proceeds to sneak close to the ‘castle’ and climb the wall where Sam and Eric are.

Even after being tortured by Roger, Sam and Eric risk their necks by providing Ralph with food and information. Quietly, “Ralph felt a chunk of meat pushed against him and grabbed it” (Golding 190), as someone was heard to be coming to check on Sam and Eric. Quickly climbing down the surface of the rock, Ralph “...tensed again. There were voices raised on the top of the castle rock” (Golding 190). Obviously, Sam and Eric still have good in them, as they would not only have ratted Ralph out to Jack, but they wouldn’t have given him food and at least some reassurance of safety the next day in a plan to keep him alive. Not only does this teach good morals of loyalty to friends, but it also strengthens my previous point of God being at the roots of anyone and anything, not to mention showing that he can light the way back to road of life from the many dark paths that some of us may have taken a wrong turn into.

Taking into account that there are numerous bad things being obvious in this book, I hope that I have not only provided myself with the truth that even ‘absolute’ darkness would be terminated by light and love, but you as well. No one deserves to live life without at least one good thing. And I hope this blog has shown that it may take work and elbow grease to find that one good thing among the bad, but that it also shows that they exist and are prominent when realized in full extent.