A book that perfectly epitomizes the teenage world.
In the same way that the
boys were marooned on the island, adults have forced adolescents into a world of their own:
high school.
Teachers and administrators are only concerned with keeping kids on the premises, and
don't care what kids do to each other.
The resulting culture is logically, brutish,
petty, and barbaric.
Few have any regard for their future. (The kids on the island have
don't take care of their rescue fire)
The only people with any sense of reason, the nerds, are either completely ignored or overtly persecuted (Ralph, Simon, and Piggy).
In this world, there are no consequences for your actions. People are free to harm as they please, because the only authority present does not care what kids do to kids, only what kids to do teachers and school property.
The real message in the Lord of the Flies was that adolescents, left to their own devices, are naturally inclined to cruelty, destruction, and savagery.
Lord of the Flies is mandatory reading for most
high school students. I
don't believe it was a coincidence.
"When I was growing up, there seemed to be two main types of teenage fiction around. The first was
fluffy (Sweet Valley High et al) and portrayed growing up as a hunky-dory experience, where
beautiful boys met beautiful girls, the greatest trauma in life was not being selected for the
cheerleading squad, and all lived happily ever after. The second type, which I feasted on with glee, explored reality. They captured just what a difficult and jagged experience growing up can be. Lord Of the Flies was published in 1954 but is still utterly relevant today. Golding uses the playing field of adolescence to explore the roots of evil, tracing the defects of society back to the defects of human nature."
-Sam Mill
