(Cool that Golding was "knighted" by British monarchy for his significant contribution to the human condition!) This novel is just packed with literary devices of all kinds, making it among my favorite allegories. The title is particularly evocative: Beelzebub is one of Lucipher's henchmen, I think.
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I searched Wikipedia on Beelzebub, and it said "Beelzebub was placed among the three most prominent fallen angels, the other two being Lucifer and Leviathan"
So the whole book is about the human condition? I'm having trouble understanding why the scene with the lord of the flies is so important. I think I understand the point Golding wanted to get across in the book but not so much the significance of the pig head?
Beelzebub has come to tell Simon that evil (and "the beast") is within each and every one of us. The pig's head is a major symbol and a vehicle that brings Beelzebub's voice to plot. Golding is saying Beelzebub is present throughout society, throughout history. Decent Germans became Nazis. Decent Rwandans became genocidal. Decent Americans became slaveowners. Simon is a good, decent person whose death represents a loss of decency/innocence.
It seems easy to lose sight of what is important. It seems that no matter what there is something waiting to come out and change what is taking place. It takes only one person to change society. What changes all depends on the person. Though it seems that when things go wrong it is because the person is reaching for power. Doing the decent thing is sometimes the hardest thing to do, especially when you are going against a crowd. When you find out what the beast is the one in power wants you gone, because you can undo everything that he has done.
I would have to agree with haily, there has been many times even in my life where i have found out things i shouldnt have known and who ever has the power attempts to take me out, as there main target. Also i do believe that one person can make a differnce but the more the more power you obtain people that end up with power dont just do it by themselves majority of the time they align with whom ever will help them get to there status and rank amongst the others.
I think that Beelzebub showing his form as the lord of the flies in the novel conveys a very strong message. that message is that everyone has evil within it is the persons choice to make whether we commit to doing evil or good. the way this is shown to us is simple, the lord of the flies talks to simon and states that the beast is inside us all. this book conveys this message for higher level thinking though as well, its not just about little boys, its about the world as a whole. Nazi's and war, things we as people can decide whether we need to have around and whether or not it is are a necessary evil in our society. either way you look at it though, Golding made sure that he got his message out to the public. By doing so, in scholarly fashion even, he showed the world that we can decided what to do from the past, from this message in lord of the flies by using a very common character in Beelzebub.
On google it says that Beelzebub was the "price of demons" in some gospels Jesus is accused of being him. so it the biblical refrence to simon makes sense. They also mistake him as the beast.
but i agree with 5hansonk. i dont really understand why the scene with the pigs head was so important to the book. isnt it obvious that the beast is within us all?
Bly--The pig's head scene is essential, because it is the point at which Simon figures out that the dead parachutist is just a dead dude, not a beast at all. Simon lets the parachutist loose from the rock, then runs down to tell the other guys that the beast is not a physical reality. FDR said, "All we have to fear is fear itself." That was Simon's message too. However, the boys don't hear his message; instead, they murder him savagely.
I argee with Mr.C when he says the "beast" lives inside every one. No person on this earth is nice to every one all the time. When you are mean to other people by what every degree that is the "beast" coming out of you. Beelzebub has been around since Adam and Eve eat from the tree of good and evil it is something we can not escape from. We can not get rid of the "beast" inside of use but we can calm it down so it does not come out as much.
I agree with mr. c because there truly is a beast within all of us. This beast within will come out when we least expect it. The beast could potentially make us hurt the ones closest to us and we wouldn't even realize it. It is not easy to be nice to every single person in the world. We sometimes find ourselves acting out in a rude, tasteless manner. We do not realize but we sometimes let the "beast" poison our minds in one way or another. It is just waiting for its chance to escape!
I think that Beelzebub by Golding to give the sense of heaven and hell. Beelzebub was a fallen angel that was sent to hell along with lucifer and i think that it is used to show the transition of the boys from good proper boys to blood hungry animals. Because they all started off together like the angels but then a couple of them decided to try to seeze power. And the boys were then sent into a chotic state where Jack was in power and ruling like Hitler and Ralph was trying to make all the boys get together again. The name lord of the flies is associated with Beelzebub and the island was more or less a hell on earth type of a place. Much like it was thought would happen if the Soviet Union and the US decided to declare nuclear war on each other at this time.
I agree with both Hanson and Bly the scene should have been made a little more black and white if he wanted to use it for the tital and basically the whole book. just that scene took up like two pages and the made it the title? ... when most people didnt even understand what happened; that seems a little bit rediculus to me.
The beast within us all can take over our action and words, but thats only if you choose to let it. If you are willing to give you self up to the "beast like" side of your personality then that is your own personal weakness. People choose the way they act and people choose the how they deal with situations they put them selves in. Your beastly thoughts of negativity lead you down the wrong path to the battles you don't need to fight. Although there is a beast in all of us, we control our own lives.
In the novel the boys could have chosen to work together as one tribe, and they could have avoided the battles they put them selves through. They allowed the beastly side of each of them to show through, and in the end it did nothing but destroy everything they had worked hard on creating.
I also agree with Mr. C about how the beast lives inside all of us. Take Mr. C as an example, in the class room hes a calm fun guy, put him in the Yankton locker room, He becomes a beast. There is a busted up garbage can to show that. Everyone has a beast in them, sometimes it comes out. The trick is controling it enough not to do something stupid. Mr. C could have beaten any body up there, but he decided to let his beast out on a steel garbage can. Which i think was the right choice.
This novel makes me wonder if Golding chose younger boys because of their immaturity. When they are at this age their "beast" is more likely to come out than a "beast" of a "grown up". It would seem obvious that younger children are more rude and tasteless, as Jenni Holle put it. But it also makes me wonder what the story would have been like if it were grown ups instead of young children. Would they still adopt and cherish the society that they are used to or would they adopt the society that Golding has presented in his novel? There is already evidence of this in the world, the holocaust would be a prime example. I think that if the children would have been replaced by adults, the same thing would have happened.
Isn't it wicked that Jack's tribe wants to place Ralph's head on top of a spear in the end?
I wish we had won that game, Brett. We played hard, but they were really talented, weren't they?
I just researched "beelzebub" on askjeeves and I agree that it means demon. The demon of Middle-Eastern Mythology. It also says that Beelzebub is the patron god of the Philistines in ancient Palestine. I clicked on a link I found on askjeeves for the website godchecker.com. They say that beelzlebub is evil demon prince of hell and lord of the Flies and Satan's bastard-in-chief. But only for fly bastards and philistines. After reading this stuff, I definitely agree with erik about beelzebub meaning
demon. I somewhat agree with what mr. c said that beelzebub referring to lucifer. I honestly don't think anyone knows the true meaning of beelzebub but we are all entitled to agree or disagree with what we find on it.
It's ironic: the only way the boys are "rescued" is by starting a fire large enough to be seen by the warring men in the sky and at sea. The only way the warring men see the island is due to the entire island burning to ashes. Are they really "rescued," though? Is their home still there? If there is nowhere for the boys to be taken, then they are not definitively "rescued."
I think Golding put the part with Beelzebub and Simon in the book to show that when you are in a situation like the boys are your mind can wander in and out of reality to the point where you can't tell the two apart. When Simon is confronted with the Lord of the Flies he is told to give up on his sanity and join the others in lucrative activities. Beelzebub then tells Simon that he will have him killed by means of Jack and the others if he does not have fun, as if to show that he is the underlaying evil that is infecting the island. Some how Simon finds the courage to prove that there is no Beast and that its all in his head. Sadly when the others see Simon with the parachute jumper they think its the Beast and kill Simon, thus completeing Beelzebub's ultimatum.
Do we blame Jack, or do we blame his role models back home? His role models are his military parents and other adults who cannot get along and who start war.
The purpose of any army should be to keep peace not seek to create/start war, right? I support our troops because we/they try to keep peace in the world.
Mr. C...
I think we have to blame Jack as well as his role models. There are many factors that could've led to his destructive behavior. For example, if his parents were stirct, then his behavior could be explained as a result of him having no rules to restrict him. Jack is obviously trained well to be a scouting killing person, but also he lacks the skills of a real leader. He appeals to what people on the island want, he shows them they don't have to care about safety or beasts but they can just have fun. It is in this respect that we can blame Jack for the screwups on the island.
Is this an apocalyptic novel?
At a Holocaust memorial: "Forgive, but never forget." Golding wants us to remember--and to change.
i think that jack's parents are partly to blame. they most likely had the most signigicant impact on his life. jack learned rights and wrongs, do's and dont's, and inherited his desire for dominance from his parents. i also think that jack is partly to blame. he acted in the manner that he did. his decisions were his choice. sure he was conditioned and sure he was in a bad enviroment. however when it really come down to it, jack is the only one that can be held responsible for his personal decisions. finally, i think that the other boys on the island have to share in some of the blame. they allowed jack to rise to power. they were around him and could have stopped him or could have simply not have supported him. this would have cut off his supply of dominance and may have changed jack completely. what good is a leader if he has no followers?
yes they were Mr. C. But we got them the next year, and the year after that.
I think that Golding’s contribution to the human condition with this novel is great. He opens up a thought realm that by many in his time was considered to be wrong and indecent. Golding takes this novel and crosses that line which is fantastic! I really like how you can derive a number of different meanings and interpretations from the book; the diminishing of humanity, religion, good, bad, evil, the human condition. A number of different areas for you to look at and get your own take on the book.
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