Lord of the Flies
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies
Oh the dreaded 12th grade reading book was finally here and ready to present itself. The syllabus explained it all but of course none of us heeded the written warning. I assumed we were all hoping that our teacher would suffer from a lapse in memory and forget all about the mind-numbing three weeks of reading. As we sat in our seats a paperback book was passed down the rows. I watched as the stack that once held 12 books slowly start to dwindle down, and as it approached my desk my heart began to race and the theme song to Jaws started blasting throughout the room the tempo increasing with every exchange. The music reached its finale and I was bitten, a book lay on my desk displaying an image of a boy dressed in a school uniform and a fly larger than the boy himself. Oh joy isn’t this going to be peachy, my sarcasm was taking over my mind about this book. As I continued to judge the book at every angle I flipped to the last page just to examine to number at the bottom of the page, 202, not bad I suppose. Then I turned to the back cover by where I was met by a quote that caught my attention. “Lord of the Flies (is my selection for The Book that Changed My Life) because it is both a story with a message and because it is a great tale of adventure. My advice about reading is to do a lot of it. – Stephen King.” Stephen King is well in my top 5 list of greatest authors to every put pencil to paper, and not only did he read this book and like, but it was the book “that changed his life.” I guess if Stephen King though something of this book then it must not have been too bad of a read. I decided to ventured into doing some research before I began reading the book allowing myself to gain so much needed knowledge, such as “do I really need to read this book myself or can I look on Spark Notes or read a few summaries that would explain it all”. To my dismay I ended up finding a back story about the book, learning that Lord of
Oh the dreaded 12th grade reading book was finally here and ready to present itself. The syllabus explained it all but of course none of us heeded the written warning. I assumed we were all hoping that our teacher would suffer from a lapse in memory and forget all about the mind-numbing three weeks of reading. As we sat in our seats a paperback book was passed down the rows. I watched as the stack that once held 12 books slowly start to dwindle down, and as it approached my desk my heart began to race and the theme song to Jaws started blasting throughout the room the tempo increasing with every exchange. The music reached its finale and I was bitten, a book lay on my desk displaying an image of a boy dressed in a school uniform and a fly larger than the boy himself. Oh joy isn’t this going to be peachy, my sarcasm was taking over my mind about this book. As I continued to judge the book at every angle I flipped to the last page just to examine to number at the bottom of the page, 202, not bad I suppose. Then I turned to the back cover by where I was met by a quote that caught my attention. “Lord of the Flies (is my selection for The Book that Changed My Life) because it is both a story with a message and because it is a great tale of adventure. My advice about reading is to do a lot of it. – Stephen King.” Stephen King is well in my top 5 list of greatest authors to every put pencil to paper, and not only did he read this book and like, but it was the book “that changed his life.” I guess if Stephen King though something of this book then it must not have been too bad of a read. I decided to ventured into doing some research before I began reading the book allowing myself to gain so much needed knowledge, such as “do I really need to read this book myself or can I look on Spark Notes or read a few summaries that would explain it all”. To my dismay I ended up finding a back story about the book, learning that Lord of
Bibliography: Baker, James R. William Golding: A Critical Study. New York: St. Martin 's Press, 1965. Ballantyne, R. M.. The coral island: A tale of the Pacific Ocean. Oxford [England: Oxford UP, 1990. Golding, William. "Lord of the Flies as Fable." Readings on Lord of the Flies. Ed. Bruno Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Coward-McCann, 1962. Print.