Talk:Lord of the Flies/Archive 2

Simon and Lord of the Flies conversation
I have just read the book and concluded that there are several issues in the section of the plot summary that describes Simon's conversation with the Lord of the Flies. First, the summary does not mention that the Lord of the Flies is the beast, a fairly big point. Also, the Lord of the Flies mentions nothing about "the soul of man". Finally, while the article says he warns Simon that the boys will kill him and "predicts" he will die, this is inaccurate; the Lord of the Flies is threatening Simon, saying that he will cause the other boys to kill Simon if he(Simon) tries to stop what Jack and his tribe are doing. However, the article is locked for editing, so I can't make these changes yourself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.36.81.53 (talk) 14:57, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

The factual error regarding Piggy's glasses
(This error is already stated on the IMDB goof pages for both the 1963 and 1990 movie versions which also reference the error being in the original book). The glasses for Piggy's particular eye condition (nearsightedness) would scatter the sun's rays not concentrate them - making them even more useless than ordinary glass for starting a fire. The error once spotted had to be left in after first publication though - because making fire and Piggy's seeing ability without the glasses were both central points. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.210.174 (talk) 16:00, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Edit request- typo in second paragraph
Written by William Golding, name cited as Goldman in second paragraph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sdlel (talk • contribs) 10:58, 16 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Corrected.. Thanks! Wikipelli Talk  19:36, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

should we create a characters section?
we should create a characters section Dangervest69 (talk) 19:08, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 December 2022
In the "Background" section it states, as "a jolly good show, like the Coral Island". The quote in the novel is "I know. Jolly good show. Like the Coral Island." Should be changed to "[a] jolly good show. Like the Coral Island." https://englishcreek.weebly.com/uploads/6/9/7/2/6972564/g6_lord_of_the_flies_-_770l.pdf Page 157 Fortifiedfruit (talk) 14:13, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ Chaheel Riens (talk) 16:12, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

"Bigun" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Bigun and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 20:34, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 January 2023
Per Theatricalia (https://theatricalia.com/play/yj/lord-of-the-flies/production/2wh) and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (https://collections.shakespeare.org.uk/search/rsc-performances/lof199508/page/15) Williams' Lord of the Flies adaptation debuted on August 3, 1995, not "in 1996". PeterJanes (talk) 20:49, 16 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Fixed 👍 Carpimaps (talk) 11:25, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Themes typo satire
In Themes, suggest editing:

... makes the novel a satirical the very behavior ...

such as to:

... makes the novel a satire of the very behavior ...

174.160.168.129 (talk) 23:16, 24 May 2023 (UTC)


 * ✅—Anita5192 (talk) 23:39, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

The fallacy of the Tongan castaways comparison
6 friends, where the oldest is 16, is a very different social dynamic than a planeload of far more schoolmates with rivalries, where the oldest is not quite 13.

The book doesn’t say how many boys, but it was a lot more than 6. The movie adaptations have kept it down to around 30 boys for cost and logistical reasons, but my impression on reading the book was more boys than that. Maybe 50ish?

Other differences that could have affected the boys' behavior: • The Tongan boys were not the product of Britich schools of the day, which were famous for brutality. • The Tongan boys were not frightened by the corpse of a fighter pilot floating down onto their island on a parachute and thereafter being hideously animated by gusts of wind. The boys of Lord of the Flies were cooperative, not fighting, before they were frightened by that.

When Lord of the Flies was published in 1954, Golding had been a schoolteacher since 1935, and later a schoolmaster, except for 5 years serving in the British navy during WWII. He knew something about how boys that age behave if left to their own devices. He also knew something about warfare.

The point of the novel is that the evil that leads to war is not something out there that we can escape from or litigate into oblivion; rather, it’s an innate part of human nature. We can’t make war go away by all holding hands in a circle and singing Kumbaya.

That’s what’s important about the book, not whether boys would really behave as depicted. No matter how boys would behave, the plain fact is that war happens. Golding wanted us to understand that it’s better to confront our dark inner truth than just play pretend.

We shouldn't be surprised if the people who most hate the book are the very people who firmly believe that we can make war go away by passing laws against it or singing Kumbaya. Greg Lovern (talk) 08:10, 3 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree that the comparison is a bit shaky. I thought the article would be more honest by referring to the Tongan castaways as "a group of 6 teenagers" rather than "a group of schoolboys", and I was going to edit the article as such, but semi-protection prevented me from doing so. 137.113.55.11 (talk) 15:23, 6 July 2023 (UTC)