The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, and address it as an intriguing story of adventure with a philosophical insight to the behavior of human nature, as well as reason with why it is considered a demented perspective on humanity. After outlining the plot of the novel, this paper will address multiple past scenarios where the novel was deemed extremely inappropriate and was banned and/or challenged in multiple ways, and will in depth explain the reasoning behind any disapproval. Specific aspects of the novel that are to blame for the development of controversial feelings will be examined and explained, as the author will provide a personal opinion on these facets of the novel and their contribution to making Lord of the Flies a memorable and philosophical allegory. To conclude, the paper will provide the author’s personal perspective on censorship throughout literature.
Censorship of Lord of the Flies
Summary of William Golding’s Novel, Lord of the Flies
During a precarious time of war, William Golding’s alluring novel follows a group of British schoolboys flying across the pacific, fleeing from dangers that accompany the ongoing war. In an ironic, unexpected turn of events, the boy’s plane crashes on an uninhabited island, leaving no adult survivors. The small group of boys who have survived the crash are left to fend for themselves. The story gradually introduces each boy in great depth, all with an individual, unique set of attributes. Ralph, one of the older and more confident of the group, initiates the role of a leader early on. He discovers a conch shell that when he blows, summons all the other boys. Ralph is selected as chief, and sequentially, he b...
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...p against a book trying to make a political point. (Miner). It is unfair to put great schools through such hardships over something that could potentially be avoided. This just makes censorship all the more unreasonable.
Conclusion
Censorship of literature has been apparent in many novels throughout history, one of them being William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. This philosophical allegory was challenged for excessive violence, inappropriate language, and themes that reflect human kind in a bad light. Although the book has been disapproved of, it is an extremely impactful work providing a unique perspective of human nature. It illustrates what human kind is capable of, and conveys that children are not immune to evil. Censorship of literature in general should not be supported. It denies learning opportunities and the endless flow of knowledge between minds.
Title Sir William Golding has constantly been a man who sees nothing good in anything. He examined the world to be a dreadful place due to the people who has populated the Earth. In order to display how he observes the world which was around the period of the second world war, he came to the decision of producing a novel. His novel was titled “Lord of the flies”. In the novel, William Golding familiarized his audience with three groups of boys; the hunters, the younger children and the gentle boys.
In conclusion, Blume’s piece “Censorship: A Personal View” was used to debate and inform the hot button issue back then of censorship in young teens literature. She comprised personal experience when handling censorship in childhood and adult life. Her personal experience alone could not hold the article together but by listing others that have lost their jobs or been suspended adds extra credibility to let the readers know how censors and censorship can effect an author’s everyday right of freedom of speech.
Writing is an art form, and one that should not be restricted to fit the whims of a few delusional parents and adults. Censorship of books in the United States dates back to Puritan New England in 1650, when William Pynchon’s The Meritorious Price of Redemption was banned from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The novel discussed a viewpoint that was against what Puritan ministers usually taught, which naturally made this book labeled as heretical. He then moved back to England because he thought New England had little religious freedom. Clearly, Pynchon understood that a piece of writing should not be banned for a town solely because it challenged some social norms in his highly-religious society. The Catcher in the Rye currently ranks at nineteen on the American Library Association’s list of the 100 most banned books in the United States. Although this is the case, The Catcher in the Rye should not be banned from schools. This is not just because the censorship of novels is morally wrong, but because the students reading it can relate to the main character’s, Holden’s, “inappropriate” scenes, can learn to form the relationships that Holden desperately lacks, and can learn that they are not alone in their feelings.
Censorship is a shroud for the intolerable, a withdrawal from the cold truths of humanity, and ultimately, the suppression of expression. When a book such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is banned in classrooms, students are not only stripped of an enriching work of literature, but also consequently stripped of the cultural and moral awareness required to survive in a world stained with imperfection and strewn with atrocity.
Although there are many interpretations of Golding’s Lord of the Flies, one of the most important is one that involves an examination of Freudian ideas. The main characters personify Sigmund Freud’s theory of the divisions of the human mind; thus, Jack, Ralph, Piggy and Simon are metaphors for the id, ego, and the super-ego of Freudian psychology, respectively. The inclusion of psychological concepts in this literary work distinguish it as a commentary on human nature, beyond labels of “adventure” or “coming of age” novel. Many readers are left in shock upon reading Golding’s masterpiece because of the children’s loss of innocence, but most fail to consider
The novel “Lord of the Flies” was written by William Golding to demonstrate the problems of society and the sinful nature of man.
Lord of the Flies provides one with a clear understanding of Golding's view of human nature. Whether this view is right or wrong is a point to be debated. This image Golding paints for the reader, that of humans being inherently bad, is a perspective not all people share. Lord of the Flies is but an abstract tool of Golding's to construct the idea of the inherent evil of human nature in the minds of his readers. To construct this idea of the inherent evil, Golding employs the symbolism of Simon, Ralph, the hunt and the island.
Noll, Elizabeth. "The Ripple Effect of Censorship: Silencing in the Classroom." Young Adult Lit: A Contemporary Reader. Ed. Dr. Jeffrey S. Copeland. Needham Heights, Mass.: Simon and Schuster Custom Publishing, 1997, p. 199-204.
“It’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written, the books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers” (Blume 1999). Judy Blume can not explain the problem of book censorship any clearer. The children are the real losers because they are the ones that are not able to read the classic works of literature which are the backbone of classroom discussions all across the United States.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies portrays the lives of young British boys whose plane crashed on a deserted island and their struggle for survival. The task of survival was challenging for such young boys, while maintaining the civilized orders and humanity they were so accustomed too. These extremely difficult circumstances and the need for survival turned these innocent boys into the most primitive and savaged mankind could imagine. William Golding illustrates man’s capacity for evil, which is revealed in man’s inherent nature. Golding uses characterization, symbolism and style of writing to show man’s inhumanity and evil towards one another.
Golding has a rather pessimistic view of humanity having selfishness, impulsiveness and violence within, shown in his dark yet allegorical novel Lord of the Flies. Throughout the novel, the boys show great self-concern, act rashly, and pummel beasts, boys and bacon. The delicate facade of society is easily toppled by man's true beastly nature.
This burden often falls on teachers. The purpose of this research paper is to discuss censorship in schools and to argue that the censorship of books in the high school English curriculum is limiting and takes away literature that is meaningful to students. How a Book is Censored Brinkley describes a few actions that can lead to the censoring of a book in a school or school system: An expression of concern is simply a question about the material with overtones of disapproval; an oral complaint is an oral challenge to the contents of a work; a written complaint is a formal written challenge to the school about the contents of a work; and a public attack is a public statement challenging the contents of a work that is made outside of the school, usually to the media to gain support for further action (1999). Brinkley also points out an important difference between selection and censorship: Selection is the act of carefully choosing works for an English course that will be age-appropriate, meaningful, and fulfill objectives, while censorship is the act of excluding works that some con... ...
Censorship has been a factor in the lives of humans since long ago in the times of the ancients, however, its prominence increased during the Middle Ages when literature became more common. Take censorship of books, for example, which has been relevant since the time after the persecution of the church, when it banned books about and/or including superstitions or opposition towards them, such as the condemnation of Thalia by Arius, a novel which portrayed “a literal, rationalist approach to the New Testament texts” (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/589822/Thalia), when “The First Ecumenical Council of Nicæa (325) condemned, not only Arius personally, but also his book... …The Emperor Constantine commanded that the writings of Arius and his friends should be burned and that concealing them was a capital crime, punishable by death.” (Rick Russell Former editor of AB Bookman's Weekly.) We look back on this as monstrous and wretched to deny someone their opinions and hide away the history from the public simply because it was in the favor of any particular group or sect. However, when we use censorship as a way for parents and teachers of children to regulate the reading material that we allow them to associate with, it’s suddenly justified and correct. Those censoring the books obviously think so. They hold the belief that they are protecting their youth from violence, harsh language, and crude humor. Parents and teachers around the nation censor The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain for similar reasons, but they continue to overlook the bigger picture. This title teaches the history of our nation, important life lessons, and the responsibilities of maturity and of growing up.
When viewing the atrocities of today's world on television, the starving children, the wars, the injustices, one cannot help but think that evil is rampant in this day and age. However, people in society must be aware that evil is not an external force embodied in a society but resides within each person. Man has both good qualities and faults. He must come to control these faults in order to be a good person. In the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding deals with this same evil which exists in all of his characters. With his mastery of such literary tools as structure, syntax, diction and imagery, The author creates a cheerless, sardonic tone to convey his own views of the nature of man and man’s role within society.
Isajlovic-Terry, Natasha, and Lynne Mckechnie. "An Exploratory Study of Children's Views of Censorship." Children and Libraries (Spring 2012): 38-43. Print.