This was required reading for my 8th Grade English class (American), as the years go on I am increasingly surprised of it's assignment and I revisit the book roughly once a year for a reread. I really appreciated how quickly their small island community tribalized and factioned off due to resource scarcity. The book has a very strong message of "The weak shall fear the strong" which seems antithetical to the commonly preached "all are equal and special in their own way" found in American public schools. I also have an affinity for the book as I played the character Jack in my High School play my senior year, and got to scream shirtless and poor fake pig's blood on my head.
Do you like LotF? What are some books that you had to read for school user, that you were surprised were allowed and specifically picked for educational purposes?
>The book has a very strong message of "The weak shall fear the strong" So you read this book once a year and THIS is the message you got from it? Jesus Christ....
Leo Sanders
of course not, there are other more notable themes that are more widely accepted. The benefits of pacifism and cooperation amongst men, how quickly corruption can spread, the religious symbolism etc. I am still surprised that the book was assigned because I took that lesson away from it.
Gavin Morgan
That's a robust notion. So many things you could get from this and he decides to pull out a rudimentary response.
Austin Butler
It's a bit brutal, but it it is necessary, just like "To Kill a Mockingbird" is necessary. It teaches lessons that if you do not learn as a kid, you are doomed to perpetrate in life.
We watched the film in class after and the scene where they drop the boulder on muscles glasses fucked my shit up.
I can still see it, nearly 15 years later, like it's burned into my retinas. I get a sick feeling in my stomach just thinking about it.
Tyler Lopez
Was required reading for me when I was 15. Never finished it because I managed to finish the in-class work for it before turning the last page. Was never actually required to comprehend it, the teacher told us what to think of the book and I just parroted her ideas back to her because it was the path of least resistance. Tempted to pick it up again at some point, but I feel like it's better to start and finish a book I haven't read any of than to read the last chapter of a story I'm already familiar with.
Benjamin Kelly
It was written by a Brit. He saw the future of his country.
Dominic Martin
As a Brit I can say we're doing fine. You know what? Don't bother visiting, mate. You're not welcome.
Ryder Walker
You're not doing fine Ahmed lmao you're on the way to hell
Aaron Rodriguez
>Ahmed Yeah, suspicions confirmed - you're a /pol/-tier bigot.
Jonathan Carter
>fucking bigots keep making fun of me and my wife and her boyfriend ali
Sebastian Sanders
Why are racists so obsessed with being cucked by brown people? It's almost like it's a fantasy. Like the pastors who are vehemently anti-homosexual but get caught sucking dick in a public toilet.
Ayden Morales
dont share your dad's story here bro jesus christ
Christian Garcia
I like it, but now, as an adult, it seems more unrealistic. There are some kids that will reenact Lord of the Flies if left to themselves, but others who will team up and work together, and others where every kid is Jack.
When I have seen LOTF happening IRL, it is usually because the adults are complicit and do not shut down the troublemakers (like that kid in the Parkland shooting).
Jordan Allen
>the scene where they drop the boulder on muscles glasses fucked my shit up >muscles glasses
>"The other thing is - why aren't they little boys AND little girls? Well, if they'd been little boys and little girls, we being who we are, sex would have raised its lovely head, and I didn't want this to be about sex. Sex is too trivial a thing to get in with a story like this, which was about the problem of evil and the problem of how people are to live together in a society, not just as lovers or man and wife.” How can you criticize society without involving the uttermost contriving subject of all, sex? He is a hack that merely got angry about bullies being mean to weak kids like Piggie. It wasn't a book about society and men. It was a book about bullies.
>Brexit literally threatening to dissolve the UK and crash the economy >focus instead on a handful of muslims fuck poltards are so dumb, they always manage to outdo themselves
Jose Johnson
This book was assigned to me as well, but my mother prohibited me from reading it.
Austin Nguyen
It's been a long time since I've read it, I remember being really sad about Simon and his fate and it bummed me out as an adolescent. I couldn't understand it.
Juan Fisher
>fuck poltards are so dumb, they always manage to outdo themselves they should be friends with the Brits then
Chase Sullivan
any themes you think you saw in the weak fearing the strong is totally ignoring the context. there is that, but only as a faction of the children break off and devolve into wild animals. the main themes of the book to me were "why society." why we have evolved to have one, and what it means to participate in one and it is when we don't. i don't think it's a book about conformity. it's about civilized man. and no, i'm not talking about supreme gentleman fedora etc
Ian Collins
>just like "To Kill a Mockingbird" is necessary. Ah yes the timeless message of >HE DINT DO NUFFIN HE A GUD BOI I SWAR TO GOD MANG
Luke Rivera
thats a pretty bullshit view of the world, primitives are quite content and non hostile in-group
Brayden Edwards
fuck off pedo
Henry Hernandez
thats what you got from that you fucking retard?
Camden Wood
>Wahhhh why can't I read stories about little boys doing sex to little girls :(
Cooper Jones
but man isn't primitive. even with the primitive aspects to man that i'll admit to, it doesn't mean we're a primitive species.
This has been one of my favorite books since I was like 10. I've reread it about a dozen times in my life, and being able to remember what it was like being a boy of that age, and how we behaved when we had the slightest amount of freedom, I'm convinced that the events in the book are realistic.
Also the book is not 'the weak should fear the strong'. Many of the boys following Jack are weak, it is more about being ostracized for being unlikeable or different in a way that stands out, but that isn't really the central theme either, just one consequence of the return to the wild, and young boys creating a tribe out of thin air, complete with quasi-religion, a social hierarchy, crude division of labor, etc.
There are so many affecting moments in this book it's hard to choose which are the best. I think one of them is when they're having that fire and they get completely out of hand and start basically hunting one of the other boys, I saw that happen so many times as a kid, just in a less extreme way, because the weight of civilization still hung over us and prevented people going truly crazy. When Simon loses it and goes off into the woods is also haunting.
I don't think the book is nihilistic, I think it's just a meditation on how humans behave in the wild, and using young boys from a civilized society is the best way to get it across, how quickly they would reinvent these patterns themselves, from their own nature that hasn't been fully socialized yet by complex civilization, and in these primitive circumstances boys/men have a sort of monopoly on violence and authority for the most part.
Jayden Perry
>Yea Forumsfag identifies with the beta no surprise
Michael Ortiz
>surprised of >factioned off You're embarrassing.
Colton Miller
> Yea Forumsfag thinks a jesus allegory serves the role of beta male
