Lord of the Flies

Looking at the book “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding through a feminist lens is not an easy task. At first glance a book about a bunch of boys seems to have nothing to do with females whatsoever. What you have to do is put yourself in the shoes of a woman who is reading this book when it came out. Mainly because much has changed with woman’s rights over the years, and it’s important to see the book the way it was presented in its published time period. It is not a sexist book; the isolation of pure males is trying to show the degradation of moral and proper human standards. Males seem to have a more animal side when deprived of order, then say an island of pure girls. Though I do not think the ending would be any different in the end. If there were a few women, things might have ended a bit darker because men can’t help themselves in times of desperation.

Since there are no females in the actual story, a feminist would first focus on the absence of the boy’s mothers on the island. The mothers are the ones who taught the kids half of what they know. Most of the boys relied on them for a person of trust in times of fear and uncomfort. Now without them, the boys start to beak down. Some cry, but most see the opportunity of power and attempt to take it. Everything their mothers have taught them in their life seems to have gone down the drain. They fight, attack each other, and go to the bathroom all over the place. Without the aura of mother around all the boys turn into animals.

Another female emergence of the book that seems to have hid from me for a while was the female pig or sow on the island. Well after the kids have crossed the dark side and become animal, they come across a sow with her little piglets. The boys brutally murder the pig with spears, going in and out, which seems almost like a rape scene than a ritual killing. The killing shows not only the derogation of a males conscience without females, but also what they would do to them. Men certainly cannot help themselves in times of desperation. Looking at the author, Golding actually admitted to trying to rape a woman in his youth. Though it’s not certain of his relationship with his mother, the event was no doubt the basis of the chapter.