Lord of the Flies
, William GoldingFair book - a bunch of kids get struck on a desert island and revert to a primitive state of un-civilization. Big Deal. What's new about kids having the capacity for harsh cruelty and bullying? Anyone who has been through the public school system understands this aspect of social childhood. Just ask the kids at Columbine High.
The rescue of the main good kid at the end doesn't fit well with the plot and is a transparent overture to popularity and commercialism.
LOF is outdated in that it is way too conservative in expressing the depths to which we may fall - if we don't follow God. Who, by the way, is never mentioned - only his enemy - the Lord of the Flies.
The Lord of the Flies metaphor is additionally misused by Golding. The Israelites referred to satan as the Lord of the Flies because he is lord only over the insignificant - flies - not the significant - us.
God is the Lord of us - perhaps this failure in Golding's perception is related to the failure of his book.