Yo yo this here is Sparky Sweets PhD and this week we gettin buck
wild with Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
Dis book starts when a G5 full of prissy British boys crash lands on
a remote island in da Pacific. Among the survivors be homies
Ralph, Piggy, Jack, and Simon. In order to get their boys in line,
Piggy and Ralph snag a big ass shell that they can use to holler
at their boys and talk bidness. They call this shell “the conch.”
Now all these kids appoint my boy Ralph as the leader and lets
Jack be the head hunter. At first, Jack be too much of a bitch to kill
for food, but soon enough dis gangsta busts his cherry and gets
some of dat good pork.
All the while, the youngins be actin scurred cuz some little fool
say he saw a monster, but Ralph be all like “chill shawty, that shit’s
all in yo head, son.”
Then one day Jack rolls up to camp, blows the conch, and say that he
saw the beast with his own eyes and that Ralph ain’t got the balls to
be the leader. Ralph say “Boy who you think you talking to?” And
Jack be like “look. If you all want some of that bacon, you gonna have
to leave Ralph’s posse and join my new crew. Straight up.”
So Jack and his crew shank another pig and impale its head on a stick
as an offerin to the beast. Then, my brother Simon has a vision of dat
pork talkin to him! That pig head be referred to as “The lord of the
Flies” and it start spittin cold truth up in Simon’s ear: He say
that the beast ain’t somethin them boys can hunt cuz it ain’t nothin
but the violence in dem kids hearts.
When Simon hauls ass back to camp, all dem little homies mistake him
for the beast and waste that fool in a cracked out frenzy. Even Ralph
and Piggy get some licks in. Wheew, this shit gettin real.
After that whack ass dance, Jack and his posse storm Ralph’s crib
and steal Piggy’s glasses, which be the only thing they can use to make
a fire.
Ralph just ain’t having it with this honkie Jack. So Ralphie boot
up and starts brawlin wit this fool. During the tussle, Piggy gets
thrown off a cliff and the conch shatters. Outnumbered by Jack’s
homies, Ralph books it for the shore and just when he about to
collapse, Ralph peeps a Naval officer chilling in the water. When
this playa sees dem kids tryin to kill Ralph, he be like “Have you
kids lost your damn mind?” Then he puts dem kids on the boat and takes
em back to civilization. But they innocence is long gone.
Alright listen up play boy. dis book be an allegorical effort to
take all the fucked up shit about society and find its origin in
human nature. By watchin these little white boys lose their mind,
we reminded of humanity’s capacity for evil and how man-made moral
systems be straight up superficial.
But you wanna know the wackest irony of all, my man? Even though
adult life may look all righteous once dat navy playa drops in, the
truth is, that soldier boy be smack in the middle of a war. In fact,
this fool was trying to get the drop on his enemy when he found
these kids. So the real tragedy up in here is that they ain’t nobody
to save civilized humanity from they violent nature neither. You
feel me?
You also best recognize that the central symbol up in this heezy is
that pig-head on a stick, or what the narrator be callin “The Lord of
the Flies”-another name for Beelzebub, the prince of demons.
AKA THE DEVIL. And like the Devil be doin, he representing the
destruction, decay and demoralization of man kind homie.
Yo, and if you wanna get all Freudian up in this bitch, you can
say that The Lord of the Flies be representin “the id,” which
functions only to ensure survival. Laws, moral codes, even
intelligence itself don’t mean jack shit when the id be in charge.
Look, You just ain’t rollin with the big dawgs unless you know bout
this here motif son. All throughout this book dey be
recurring patterns of fallin- Piggy fallin off the cliff and the conch
falling with him, the falling parachutist, Ralph fallin at the
navy man’s feet. All dat shit be emphasizing the “fall of human kind."
Also, the Loss of Piggy’s sight be a symbol for the fall of reason.
When that punk Jack boosts Piggy’s glasses to make a fire for his
gang, it straight up indicates the transition from the reign of reason
to the reign of savagery. Ya heard?
Thanks for watchin Thug Notes. And I'll see you next week.