Dystopian Society In The Lord Of The Flies

While the serenity of the island may have hinted towards an edenic utopia, William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies quickly deviates to a dystopian society as the boys become inundated with Their animalistic instincts. Golding uses imagery of the dense jungleto express the sense of isolation the boys endure throughout the novel, which parallels the captive state of James Dashner’s The Maze Runner. In the Novel, the gladers appeared one by one inside an ever-shifting maze, lacking any prior knowledge of their past life or identity. The protagonist, Thomas, demonstrated his unique physical abilities, and was placed with an elite group of runners to find an escape route. With the help of the only girl in the maze, Theresa, Thomas tries to convince his peers he knows a way out. On the other hand, the main characters in Lord of the Flies struggle to agree on how their group should be structured. The main conflict between Ralph and Jack was whether the community would be ruled by order or savagery displays the true nature of humanity. The Lord of the Flies better reflects elements of a dystopian society than the Maze Runner because of the oppressive figurehead, the protagonist’s fears about society, and an unconventional setting.

In Lord of the Flies, Jack is the primary representation of savagery, barbarity, and dictatorship. Jack attempts to consolidate power on the island through fear and mob mentality. He paints the portrait of a fabricated beast as a ploy to gain leadership amongst the boys, while slowly giving in to his animalistic instinct to hunt and kill. The more uncivilized he becomes, the majority of the boys are reduced to savagery and align themselves under Jack’s leadership. After the boys are acclimated to the island, Jack ordered the boys to follow him to build a fire after a successful hunt. Golding discusses how the boys disregarded Ralph’s authority and followed Jack (2.120-123)” This is one of the first times Jack’s forceful command gained him support for the boys, and he increasingly utilized his force as assertion of his dominance over the others. Later in the novel, Jack uses his totalitarian rule to orchestrate the deaths of Piggy and Simon. The mob mentality that the boys hid behind during Simon’s killing was heavily influenced by the false perception of the beast, cultivated by Jack in order to unify the boys under his control. Both the killing of Piggy and Simon demonstrate one aspect of Jack’s rule; to shut down any dissent and opposition of his leadership. Ralph, Piggy, and Simon were the only boys to challenge Jack’s authority over the group. By attempting to kill off the only resistance of his leadership on the island, he embodies the same oppressive leadership qualities of an autocratic dictator, usually found in dystopian novels.

The protagonist Ralph struggled to keep the group civilized as the boys became accustomed to the island. Ralph understood that the only way they would get off the island is if they maintained order and focused on getting rescued. Shortly after Ralph was established the leader, the boys would disregard Ralph’s directions to build shelters and keep the signal fire lit, and went out hunting instead. They failed to recognize the overall goal of getting rescued, and Ralph realized that the boys would not accept any form of organization or procedure, but instead let anarchy and chaos prevail over their society. Towards the end of the novel, Ralph confronts Jack about his leadership and the best interest of the boys. He suggests, “Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?” This quote encapsulates the primary conflict between Ralph and Jack. Jack prioritized hunting and savagery, while Ralph favors law, order, and working towards the common goal of getting rescued. He urges the boys to reunite and help build a civilization, but their barbarity has taken full jurisdiction of their decisions, and Ralph recognizes that any hope of civilization is a lost cause.

The Maze Runner was effective in depicting a dystopian novel through its setting. The Maze Runner is set in a futuristic world where the characters are held captive inside the center of the maze. The gladers arrive in the glade with no prior knowledge of the outside world and no memory of their personal identities. They do not know how they arrived there or how to get out. In the beginning of the book, the narrator describes the dolor Thomas expresses when he cannot remember anything about himself. It says, ”At that moment, Thomas realized with a sickening lurch that he had no idea how old he was. His heart sank at the thought—he was so lost he didn’t even know his own age. (2.24)” The creator’s constant oversight of the unaware gladers exemplifies the idea of constant surveillance found in dystopian novels. Every new glader experiences this overwhelming disorientation when they first enter the glade, and Thomas and the gladers’ lack of awareness about their situation shows how their independent thoughts and freedom were restricted. While the Maze Runner does depict a dystopian society, The Lord of the Flies is able to better display characteristics of a dystopia through its unconventional setting. 

The realistic element of the plane crash gave the novel a more effective narrative, which allowed the reader to see first- hand the dissolution of the boys’ civilization as the book progressed. In the early days of life on the island, the boys were tentative to hunt pigs for food. As the boys become accustomed to the island, their barbaric instincts slowly take over and the hunters find enjoyment in the gruesome hunt. After one particular hunt seen, Jack relishes over the feeling after the satisfying kill. The narrator describes, “His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink.” The ferocity and bloodlust demonstrated by the hunters displays how the characters lost their sense of civilization. The real-world setting of Lord of the Flies allows a better understanding of man’s inherent evil, and more successfully emphasized elements of a dystopian society than the Maze Runner.      

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