"Cliff Notes - Lord of the Flies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

From atop the mountain, Ralph, Jack, and Simon see that the island is "boat-shaped" and feel like men on a ship rushing toward an adventure. This idea of men on a ship moving toward an appointed destiny is repeated at the story's climax, and in it we find hints of the author's profound understanding of human nature.

As the boys descend the mountain, Simon admires the beauty of the candle bushes. Ralph thinks them useless because they don't shed light, and Jack slashes one with his knife. Here again Golding gives us clues of what is to come. The boys encounter a pig, but they are unable to kill it. Although Jack has been talking about hunting for food, he hesitates to stab. "The pause" of the knife "was only long enough for them to understand what an enormity the downward stroke would be."

These are boys playing out their fantasy of life on a deserted island, a life without adult rules. They recognize instinctively that the "cutting into living flesh" and the "unbearable blood" will destroy the game. Yet Jack begins to practice stabbing, and he promises a kill next time.

^^^^^^^^^^LORD OF THE FLIES: CHAPTER TWO

At the second assembly, a small boy with a mulberry birthmark talks about the beast in the jungle. After the group has built the first fire with the aid of Piggy's glasses, the boy is found to be missing and thought dead.

Returned from the exploration, Ralph calls an assembly to establish rules. "'Hands up' like at school," Ralph says. Only the person holding the conch may speak. Thus the conch represents the order they will try to maintain and respect.

Jack says that Ralph is right. "We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything."

For now Ralph and Jack sit side by side on a log and try to convey the beauty of the island to the others. But the little ones (called little 'uns, and later littluns) grow frightened that they may not be rescued. Ralph says, "It's like in a book."

NOTE: THE NATURAL-GOODNESS-OF-MAN THEORY All the boys have read adventure stories such as Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, and Swiss Family Robinson. One idea which these books share is that man is corrupted by living in civilization. If he could be put back into a more natural setting, such as a deserted island or a paradise, he would revert to his original state of goodness. The boys never question this concept of innocence in the books they've read. They believe it, and they want to be like the people they've read about. Lord of the Flies is an attempt to disprove this theory of the natural goodness of man.

Throughout the novel the author will let you know his thoughts about the state of man's heart. He will also try to convince you of what he believes. By the end of the story you may agree with him, but you don't have to. You're entitled to your own opinion about whether the forces of good are stronger or weaker than the forces of evil--or whether there are such forces at all. But you will need to be able to support your opinion with evidence from the novel. Notice the events as they are described. Do you believe they would really take place? Would you be more likely to follow Ralph, Piggy, Jack, or Simon? Or would you have an entirely different attitude?

The boys are convinced that they'll have a good time and be like heroes in a book--until a boy with "a mulberry-colored birthmark" on his face speaks. He wants to know what they're going to do about the snakelike beastie he's seen in the woods. At first the others laugh, but as the child persists, they become more and more uneasy. All of them know what it's like to have nightmares or be scared by the dark.

The little boy says it came in the dark, and "in the morning it turned into them things like ropes in the trees and hung in the branches."

NOTE: The beastie, the snakelike thing, is an important symbol. What the boy with a birthmark says hints at the changing nature and beliefs about the beast. The boys' thinking about the beast will change throughout the story. Here they are talking about an actual creature, a snakelike thing that may be present on the island with them.

Ralph doesn't know how to handle the little boy's fear of the beast. He offers logical reasoning: "You only get them in big countries, like Africa, or India." Ralph can't convince them that the beast does not exist. And he doesn't have the intelligence to consider the existence of a beast in some abstract form. Frustrated, Ralph can only suggest that they build a fire to assure their rescue.

Jack appears to agree with Ralph, then adds, "But if there was a snake we'd hunt it and kill it." With that statement, Jack allows for the beast's possible existence, and this terrifies the boys. It is important to follow Jack's use of terror in the course of events.

In the second scene the boys assemble logs and leaves atop the mountain, only to realize they have no means of starting a fire. Jack snatches Piggy's glasses from his face, leaving him howling with fear, for Piggy is almost blind without his glasses. Recall that Piggy is the book's representative of civilization; when he loses his glasses, the link to a rational world is momentarily severed.

NOTE: SIGHT, BLINDNESS, FIRE, AND THE MOUNTAIN Being able to see and being blind have always been important themes in literature. In Piggy's case, his glasses imply that he sees or knows more than most of the other boys. He is more concerned with maintaining a civilized and orderly life on the island. He "sees" what will happen if they aren't able to do this.

The glasses symbolize the link to civilization, but at the same time they show Piggy's impaired ability. While Piggy knows or sees more than Ralph, he does not see the total situation on the island. In addition to his real visual problems, Piggy's vision of what the jungle represents is impaired. He will come to blame his and the boys' troubles on Jack, and he will never fully recognize the true situation. Thus Piggy can have the ability to see or understand more than most people and at the same time not be able to see his immediate situation clearly. Often in literature the inability of a character to see clearly around himself enables him to see the future. This usually marks him as a fool to the people around him and subjects him to the ridicule of those less perceptive than he.

Fire on a mountain is a complex symbol in literature. The mountain represents a place where man has gone to pray; fire represents humanity's hope. By lighting a fire on the mountain, primitive man was telling his gods: We're scared to be alone. You must be out there; tell us what to do. This is what the boys are saying, symbolically, when they light the fire.

The boys cheer as the fire grows. "The flames, as though they were a kind of wild life, crept as a jaguar creeps on its belly toward a line of birch-like saplings." The fire is described as a wild beast. The boys fall "silent, feeling the beginnings of awe at the power set free."

Piggy peers "nervously into hell" and says, "him with the mark on his face.... Him that talked about the snakes. He was down there-"

"Tall swathes of creepers rose for a moment into view, agonized, and went down again." The little boys scream, "Snakes! Snakes!" The boy with the mulberry birthmark has apparently been killed by the fire, the beast he feared in the creepers has taken him.

The concept of feared things becoming the enemy is one you'll want to keep in mind. It has a great deal to do with the ultimate meaning of the story.

What began as paradise has somehow turned into hell. Something is wrong. There are snakes in paradise, and Ralph's having a snake-clasp on his belt suggests that the boys have brought the snakes with them. This wasn't in any of the adventure books the boys read. Golding is giving us fair warning that the theory of man's natural goodness may have serious flaws.

^^^^^^^^^^LORD OF THE FLIES: CHAPTER THREE