Two separate illustrations of an animal head and a fire on a mountain

Lord of the Flies

by William Golding

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Adult Influence in Lord of the Flies

Summary:

In Lord of the Flies, adult presence would drastically alter the novel's exploration of humanity's inherent wickedness. Without adults, the boys on the island regress into savagery, highlighting Golding’s theme of inherent evil. Adults, conditioned by society, might maintain order and suppress primitive instincts, unlike the boys who fail to establish a civil society. The absence of adults emphasizes the boys' struggle to adhere to moral guidance and order, while the presence of an adult might prevent the descent into chaos depicted in the novel.

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How would Lord of the Flies differ if adults, not boys, were on the island?

Placing adults on the island would defeat the purpose of the novel and dramatically alter Golding's message regarding humanity's inherent wickedness. Golding specifically places the young boys on an uninhabited island with plenty of food and pleasant living conditions to focus on their social interactions. Without the guidance of adults or remnants of civilization, the boys attempt to establish a civil society but fail when they revert back to their primitive, savage nature. Adults would have been more conditioned by civilization than the young boys and would probably have been less susceptible to exercise their primitive instincts. Additionally, society tends to view children as innocent, naive, and harmless. However, Golding's choice to place young, presumably harmless boys onto the uninhabited island emphasizes his message that humans are inherently evil. Golding depicts humanity's inherent wickedness by vividly illustrating how the young boys develop into brutal, bloodthirsty savages in an environment without...

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adult interference or civilization's rules and regulations. If adults were on the uninhabited island, they would probably be able to establish a civil society given their extensive conditioning and lifelong experience living in civilization. The fear regarding the "beast" would probably not exist if adults were on the island instead of boys, and adults would more than likely stop tyrannical leaders likeJack from usurping power, because they would be able to recognize his malevolent nature.

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What is the role of adults in Lord of the Flies?

Golding specifically chose to have the adolescent British boys crash land on a deserted island in order to illustrate that humans are inherently wicked and will revert back to their primitive nature in certain circumstances. Similar to their adult counterparts who are engaged in a world war, the British boys fail to establish a civil society on the uninhabited island. Plans go awry as the boys gradually descend into savagery, and Jack establishes his tribe of savages at the opposite end of the island. Despite their civilized upbringing, the children struggle to maintain their civility in an environment without structure, regulations, or laws.

When Ralph and Piggy wish for adult intervention, a paratrooper is shot out of the sky and lands on the island, which only makes the situation worse. At the end of the novel, Ralph is being chased by Jack's band of savages and runs out of the forest to discover a British naval officer standing on the beach. The naval officer comments,

"I should have thought that a pack of British boys—you're all British, aren't you?—would have been able to put up a better show than that—I mean—" (Golding, 157).

The adult officer's comment is ironic because he is a participant in a world war, which mirrors the brutal, savage environment the boys have created on the island. Golding shows that both the boys and adults share an affinity for violence and savagery despite their age difference, which suggests that all humans, particularly males, are inherently evil.

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How would Lord of the Flies change with girls instead of boys?

You might also read (or read about) Rosalind Wiseland’s Queen Bees and Wannabes:  How to Help Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence. Not fiction, this book provides profound insight into the competition and aggression in the behavior of teenage girls, destroying all theories about the “niceness” of girls as opposed to the “violence” of boys. In an attempt to find their place in the world, young girls will bully and attack each other (usually through gossip, exclusion, and small gestures only they can interpret) to create a social order, hierarchical and defined by power, within their own groups.  This has everything to do with the situation in which the boys find themselves in Lord of the Flies. The “girls’ version” would be, simply, The Queen of the Bees.

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This is a great question! I'll share with you some differences I've found between boys and girls who are about the same ages as the boys in the novel. Remember that these are generalizations of boys and girls who are ages eight to about twelve. It's not unusual for girls to be tomboys at this age, displaying many characteristics typical of boys. 

It's been found that in almost every culture, boys are more aggressive than girls. Boys spend time playing competitive games, so focused on the rules that they often argue with their friends about them. ("You broke the rules!") Girls are more likely to settle their differences by talking them out. Instead of arguing about the rules, they'll usually suggest a compromise of some sort to either change the rules or change the game they're playing. Girls also tend to play games that involve taking turns so everyone gets a chance to play.

Boys are also sometimes encouraged to be assertive and outspoken. They're very physical at this age, wrestling and playing roughly, to prove who is stronger, faster, etc. They have lots of energy, seeming to be tireless. Girls tend not to be as assertive as boys in this age group, but they can be outspoken and noisy. Their games aren't as physical on the whole. Girls don't feel the need yet to outdo each other, but they definitely are as energetic as boys at this age.

The age group is what's important here. As teenagers, things change. I hope this helps.

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Well, as the movie "Mean Girls" says, "they'd just tease each other into eating disorders."  :)

Seriously, this is a great question.  You'd probably want to avoid stereotypical "girly" behavior expectations like everyone working in some seemless community festooned with butterflies and rainbows.  I doubt, however, that girls' would act as Ralph and Jack and Piggy do either.

My best suggestion is to recommend several books to you where female protagonists act outside patriarchal norms.  These novels treat women respectfully and in an interesting way. Like Golding's novel about boys who live in single sex communities, these novels are all about girls who live in communities of all, or mostly all, girls.  They are:

1) Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

2)  A Door into Ocean by Joan Slowzewski

3) The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper

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What role do adults play in the boys' lives in Lord of the Flies? What happens when they realize there are no adults on the island?

Throughout the book the reader gets glimpses of the roles that adults played in the boys' lives back home. Piggy and Ralph are the ones who share most of these insights. In the first chapter, Piggy refers to his "auntie," whom he has lived with since the death of his parents. His auntie gave him candy, told him how to manage his asthma, and provided Piggy with an education, both formal and practical. Piggy has book knowledge and knowledge of how to blow the conch; a variety of experiences that adults introduced him to have helped him develop his mind. 

The boys have experience listening to and obeying adults who organize them and tell them what to do and how to behave. The boys respond to the conch because it reminds them of "the man with the megaphone" who instructed them during the evacuation. Jack's leading the choir boys in line and ordering them when to stop or take their "togs" off mimics what the boys have seen adults do. Ralph is convinced his father, a Navy commander, will find the boys and rescue them because his father has told him that "the Queen has a big room full of maps and all the islands in the world are drawn there." This shows the adults, at least in Ralph's life, instill knowledge as well as national pride in the boys.

Ralph and Piggy, as well as the littluns, seem to miss the adults the most. Several times the issue of who is watching or not watching the littluns comes up; the role of caring for young children was obviously performed by adults back home, and although Piggy tries to fill in, he is inadequate. Piggy laments multiple times, "What's grownups going to think?" This shows that the adults provide moral guidance and approval of proper behavior and disapproval of improper behavior. One of the most poignant discussions about grownups is this conversation between Piggy, Ralph, and Simon:

"Grownups know things," said Piggy. "They ain't afraid of the dark. They'd meet and have tea and discuss. Then things 'ud be all right—"
"They wouldn't set fire to the island. Or lose—"
"They'd build a ship—"
The three boys stood in the darkness, striving unsuccessfully to convey the majesty of adult life.

This shows that adults, in the boys' experience, have superior intellectual and social skills, allowing them to be effective problem solvers.

When the boys realize there are no adults on the island, they attempt to form a civilization, electing Ralph as chief. He starts out saying that they have two goals—to have fun and to be rescued. Although Ralph, Piggy, and Simon attempt to fill the roles of adults, the other boys don't, and that leads to the downfall of their civilization.

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Would Lord of the Flies be different with adolescent girls instead of boys?

In the novel The Lord of the Flies, one could make the argument that things would have turned out differently if the characters had been girls instead of boys.

Let’s consider that the book was published over half a century ago. I think we can safely infer that adolescent British girls were probably less competitive and more refined than boys were. I think that, for a good long while anyway, that the girls would have abstained from breaking into contentious factions. I think they also would have been less likely begin to develop a primitive, superstitious religion.

The girls would have been less likely to hunt, which was part of what brought out the violent and superstitious behavior in the boys.

Over time, however, if they were not rescued, they may have begun to show the traits that the boys showed in the novel.

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How would Lord of the Flies differ if it featured girls instead of boys?

Well, it's a counter-factual question: to change the boys into girls would entirely change the tone and shape of the novel. For one thing, there would be problems with the period: when Golding was writing the novel, feminism as such hadn't really started, and it would be, I think, unusual for an all-girls school to be flying their children out on a plane (a choir tour? Evacuated - without luggage?). You also wouldn't be able to have "the choir" for Jack to be in charge of: English public school classical choirs are, for some reason, nearly always all male - even to the present day (think of King's College, Cambridge, and St. Pauls... and so on). The choirboy is a bit of a British institution.

Golding also makes much of the stereotypical British "stiff upper lip", stoical gentleman. Here's Jack:

After all, we're not savages. We're English; and the English are best at everything. So we've got to do the right things.

That again, is specifically a male stereotype. With a female-driven novel, that would also have to change.

So in short it would be a very different novel. That said, I don't think it would necessarily have to alter Golding's central theme: "the darkness of man's heart", and the propensity of humans for savage, evil behaviour. It is, I think, a universal theme that Golding chooses to explicate through a group of boys. It could, I think - though in a very different way - be explained through a group of girls.

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What roles do adults play in Lord of the Flies?

The adults are the ones who created the problem; they are the ones who bicker and can't get along to the point that a cataclysmic war is started that is the reason the boys are on the plane in the first place.  The dead pilot and later, the dead parachutist, represent the fact that those people let the inner evil beast out and that brought about their deaths as well as the deaths of others.  When Simon sees the pig's head on the stick and he has his "conversation" with it in chapter 8, the description of the head (which becomes, to Simon, the Lord of the Flies), is that it had "...the infinite cynicism of adult life."  This means that it believed that all people are evil and self-serving; that all adults are skeptical and even cynical, about any deeds one does because they know that people don't act out of goodness, but out of evilness.  Golding is implying that as one ages, the evilness inside of each person, comes out more and more.  The boys on the island, though children still, have grown up very quickly because there are no adults living with them.  They have become adults while still boys.  The only living adult that appears in the story is the naval officer who finds the boys at the end of the story.  He, at first, thinks the boys are just playing and then when Ralph cries, he is embarrassed. He is portrayed as being unaware of the evilness but his lack of awareness is due to his desire to be unaware.  He doesn't want to know the truth about what happened on the island because the truth would be ugly and might make him evaluate his own life.  Instead, he looks away.  Golding is showing that adults are the biggest source of evil through both their actions and their inactions.

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How would events in Lord of the Flies change with one adult among the children?

I believe that by "children" you mean that the characters are exactly the same as before.  The only difference is that there is now a single adult among the group.  

This is a completely open question.  It's up to you to explain what you think and why.  

For me, the question is almost too wide open to give a prediction.  What kind of adult are we talking about?  If the adult is a natural leader that happens to be a male, then I think that he steps into the leadership role and all of the boys follow his lead.  I do not think that the chaos ensues that Golding wrote about, because I don't feel that characters like Jack would have the brazen confidence to disregard social norms.  The adult is a feared authority figure.  

On the other hand, if the adult is a female, I feel that the chaos might still happen.  I have nothing against women, but it definitely takes a strong lady to control a group comprised of all teenage boys.  I had a colleague one year that had an eighth grade history class made up of 23 boys.  There were no girls.  This colleague of mine was a very good teacher, and well respected across multiple classes and ages; however, she would frequently comment on how her all boy history class was the toughest class that she ever had to teach. An adult female on the island might have very little impact on the events of the story. 

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