"Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Spill her blood!"
Lord of the Flies has lots of creepy stuff, like William Golding's firm belief that Humans Are Bastards, especially preteens and teenagers.Spoilers below.
- Roger. You have to wonder what force compels the boy to be as unique as he is. How will he be when he is older? The difference between Roger and the other boys in the choir, including Jack, is that the others weren't any worse than what Golding believed human nature was, but Roger was actually evil. The stick sharpened at both ends. Killing Piggy. Now imagine what he could do if he weren't trapped on an island and had access to more than sticks and rocks.
- Simon's death, where he is mistaken for the Beast that the boys have been hunting and stabbed with spears. Even more horrifying, he is the only one to figure out the truth that the Beast isn't real. It's also mentioned he was BITTEN and TORN.
- A quick but effective moment in the 1990 film; the camera pans back as Simon's body lies on the beach, the dark of night covering up how mutilated he is - until a flash of lightning briefly shows everything.
- Piggy's death at Roger's hand. Dropping the boulder was nothing more than an act of pure, cold-blooded murder from a pre-teen boy.
- Piggy's whole situation is terrifying. Imagine being a severely handicapped individual on an island where people bully you, you have two influential people who support you, and your handicaps prevent you from asserting yourself. As time passes, the values you hold dear are being eroded around you, and the bully starts hitting you with less restraint. Finally, someone steals your glasses and decides that you are no longer needed before dropping a rock on you.
- The notion that you can be perfectly normal but if you are isolated from society for long enough you can be reduced to the behavior of a raving animal.
- The death of the sow, described in all its grisly glory. And by extension, the boys attempting to hunt down and kill Ralph supposedly in the same way they killed the sow.
- A 12-year old schoolboy, after a successful pig hunt:Jack: YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE BLOOD!
- "Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Spill her blood!"
- Oh, it gets even more disturbing. The killing of the pig gets so intense, that the boys aren't thinking about food anymore: they're just ecstatic about holding so much power over a helpless creature, that they can do whatever they want to it with no repercussions. The whole thing reads like a gang-rape scene. You could replace the word "spear" with "penis" and the effect would be pretty much the same.They surrounded the covert but the sow got away with the sting of another spear in her flank. The trailing butts hindered her and the sharp, cross-cut points were a torment. She blundered into a tree, forcing a spear still deeper; and after that any of the hunters could follow her easily by the drops of vivid blood [...].Here, struck down by the heat, the sow fell and the hunters hurled themselves at her. This dreadful eruption from an unknown world made her frantic; she squealed and bucked and the air was full of sweat and noise and blood and terror [...]. The spear moved forward inch by inch and the terrified squealing became a high-pitched scream. Then Jack found the throat and the hot blood spouted over his hands. The sow collapsed under them [...]. At last the immediacy of the kill subsided. The boys drew back, and Jack stood up, holding out his hands. "Look." He giggled and flecked them while the boys laughed at his reeking palms. Then Jack grabbed Maurice and rubbed the stuff over his cheeks ... "Right up her ass!"
- And also note, as stated before, these are twelve-year-old boys.
- Not surprisingly, assigning a novel to grade school students tends to be controversial among parents of grade-school children and their teachers, but even those who permit it tend to let the students skip over this scene because it's that gruesome.
- Oh, it gets even more disturbing. The killing of the pig gets so intense, that the boys aren't thinking about food anymore: they're just ecstatic about holding so much power over a helpless creature, that they can do whatever they want to it with no repercussions. The whole thing reads like a gang-rape scene. You could replace the word "spear" with "penis" and the effect would be pretty much the same.
- The hazy descriptions of the physical Beast, in truth the dead pilot of a fighter that was shot down and killed while ejecting, his parachute dragging his body eerily about in the wind, in the dark.Behind them the silver of moon had drawn clear of the horizon. Before them, something like a great ape was sitting asleep with its head between its knees. Then the wind roared in the forest, there was confusion in the darkness and the creature lifted its head, holding toward them the ruin of a face.
- The titular pig's head, eaten clean by flies and described to have the voice of them in the psyche-shriveling sequence when he speaks to Simon.
- In addition to the above, the entire scene at the end of Chapter 8 with Simon and the Lord of the Flies. The whole thing reads as Satan himself conversing with a half-conscious twelve-year-old, who just might represent Jesus."Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!" said the head. For a moment or two, the forest and all the other dimly appreciated places echoed with the parody of laughter. "You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you? Close, close, close! I'm the reason why it's no go? Why things are what they are?" The laughter shivered again.
- In one scene where Ralph is forced to flee, he encounters the skull of the pig. It is described as having been as white as the old conch used to be, and when Ralph breaks it, he finds the skull still sneering at him. This seemingly represents how the Lord of the Flies and all its evil have become the dominant force on the island.
- Near the end of the book, when Ralph is in his hiding place and hears a savage coming. He first hopes that it might be Sam & Eric, who'll just pretend that they didn't see him, but as the figure emerges he comes face to face with Roger. Cue Ralph screaming and running for his life.
- "Sharpened a stick at both ends." Remember the last time the boys did that, they used it to offer the sow's head as a sacrifice. It's implied that Ralph realized that his head was going to be cut off and put on a stake as a sacrifice for the Beast.
- Jack, a 12-year-old boy, going from just a Control Freak who likes hunting all the way to becoming an Evil Overlord, complete with an Evil Tower of Ominousness, a sacrificial cult, bloody rituals, Praetorian Guard, torturing and killing opponents and a royal executioner.
- The way that the boys ended up stranded is often overlooked in the discussion of the novel since their time on the island is the main focus. It has some truly horrifying implications, though. Lord of the Flies is ultimately a novel about the survivors of a global thermonuclear war. When they're rescued in the end, it's by a military ship. We never do find out what they came back home to (or if their homes still existed at all), but there's a good chance that it's not much better than what they left. Just the same acts of war and violence, but on a larger scale.
- Sam and Eric's situation near the end is not pretty. Imagine your enemies outnumber you, you're attacked while sleeping, your friend's glasses are stolen and you go to retrieve them only to be kidnapped and tortured to join your enemies. They kill one friend and wound the other and you're forced to hunt and murder him.
- The 1963 film adaptation expands on the world outside the island in a prologue told through still images. It is explained that England is going through a missile crisis and the plane was struck by lightning during a storm. The images are backed by drumbeats which grow more and more tense and unnerving.
