Seeing the Reflection of A World Gone Mad in the Pages of Lord Of the Flies

/ Lisa R. Howeler

You know the craziness of the world has finally got to you when you read Lord of the Flies with your 14-year old son for his school and see so much of the world today in its pages that you literally break down. The theme of this book definitely made more sense as an adult than it ever did as a tenth grader.

Slogging through this book the last month has been tough, not because William Golding was a horrible writer, but because his book is so accurate to what happens when people are overcome by the savagery of power and forget to be civilized.

We are not stranded on an island, no, but our world, especially our country right now, is in the throws of two warring sides fighting for power and not caring who gets killed in the process. People with common sense who just want to live their lives without being accused of being racist, homophobic, transphobic, or Grandma killers simply based on the color of our skin or the way we worship are Piggy on the rocks with his head split open.

Everyday citizens who want to go to work, earn money, support their family, and spend time with that family are Simon bleeding on the beach and being washed out to sea while savages watch with wild eyes and blood-soaked chests, breathing heavy and ready for the next kill.

Politicians scream it at each other from across the aisle, across the hallways of our government buildings, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!”

People who don’t want to hear a dissenting opinion, so they demand the removal of books, of entertainment, of people, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!”

No longer do we just want to tell someone they are wrong, we want them to die, and when they die we dance around their bodies chanting our joy at their demise.

“He was a conservative! I’m glad he’s dead!”

“He was a leftist and hell is now where he burns!”

“He killed babies in the womb and we should rejoice he is rotting in the ground!”

“She said she loved babies but really she hated women and didn’t want them to have freedoms! We will dance around this fire with her blood on our hands and laugh at her destruction!”

I read the last few chapters of Lord of the Flies, horrified, sick to my stomach, literally ready to run from the house and find somewhere to hide so the beast couldn’t get me. Only, in reality, the beast isn’t a dead parachuter who fell from the sky during battle.

The beast is the ugliness this world espouses at us every day now.

The beast is the darkness of the souls of men that we see every day on social media when someone says we should lock this person up and watch them die, or we need to remove this or that group from our world so they can do no harm.

The beast is wanting voices different from our own to be silenced.

The beast is using children as pawns in our ridiculous political fights – sacrificing their mental and physical well-being to gain political points.

The beast is “got-you” statements on social media that replace real compassion, real hope, real efforts to help those hurting and in need.

Headlines declare, “So-and-so blasts so-and-so” and the tribe cheers. “That’s right! You tell them! You grab the conch and give ‘em hell!”

All the while no one realizes that words mean nothing until eventually, they mean something when they stir the tribe into a frenzy and the tribe members lash out in violence, burning entire forests down to get to one person, not even caring who dies to flush out that one thing, that one belief, that one dissenting opinion the tribe wanted destroyed.

“And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.”

The saying is true. We don’t know what we had until it’s gone.

Do you miss it yet?

11 thoughts on “Seeing the Reflection of A World Gone Mad in the Pages of Lord Of the Flies”

  1. Pingback: Sunday Bookends: Her last Name Is Really Raisin? And Let’s See How Reading Non-Fiction Goes – Boondock Ramblings

  2. Wow, this was a powerful post Lisa and so very painfully true. My husband always says “When nothing is enough, nothing is what is left.” and that sadly is the world we live in. What ever moment we are given that brings us happiness, the people who really care for us and have our backs, the little scraps of kindness that are out there…we all need to hold on to those things with an iron grip. God is shining the light on everything, opening our eyes to everything, even those ugly old lies that are now becoming our truths. The truth will set us all free. Hang in there, there are good people, courageous people, and they will always do the right things. Big hugs all the way from Arizona to your whole family. I will keep you all in my prayers.

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  3. Pingback: When You See the Parallels of A World Gone Mad in the Pages of Lord Of the Flies

  4. Wow Lisa, this post 👏🏻 It was so on point! There is a vengeance and hate in this world and we seem to not even notice it anymore. But it’s louder and stronger than ever. I don’t understand how we’ve gone from a democracy to this, but THIS isn’t democracy. It is insanity. All previous empires and civilizations have had their weaknesses and all of them crumble and fall because of them. We walk on eggshells to not offend the people in power… but they are literally searching for reasons to be offended. Any grounds for offence is justification to rip a person to shreds while the world cheers because they “deserved it”. And we’re tearing our society apart piece by piece, one person at a time.

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    • It’s group think. People can’t even vote or speak their conscience any more without the group they are a part of, so to speak, calling them a traitor. I’ve now recently seen this in both political parties, in groups of certain races, and even in religious groups. I think William Golden is correct that given the opportunity people will break off, form their own tribes, and begin attacking those who don’t want align perfectly with the particular group. I wanted to write that so far we aren’t attacking each other with homemade spears or pushing boulders off cliffs but we’ve already seen the news reports of people who were physically attacked around the election for supporting one candidate over another. I’m trying to be non-partisan here b sadly that happened to one group more than another and that isn’t to point fingers but to say that the charge that one political party leans toward violent actions toward those who don’t agree with them and the other does not is a lie. For years people were being beat in the street, called slurs and horrible things I can’t repeat here, and there were so many who said they deserved it for supporting a certain candidate. It was surreal and the media rarely covered it because I am convinced that given the chance those members of the national media would have done the same thing if for nothing more than ratings but also for revenge for being called liars (which they are — almost all of them because they stir you up with half truths to get you angry, to get you to watch, to get you angry, to get you to act so they can report and then repeat the cycle all over again.)

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      • I keep trying to figure out the root of all the insanity lately. And it’s actually too big for my brain. There’s just too many questions that no one wants to answer with patience.
        Questions like: “Why is the media paying attention to whiners but not important injustices?”
        “Why is one COVID death in my province mentioned in the daily news, but not the hundreds of cancer or obesity related deaths?”
        “When did it become unacceptable to try to get a boy or girl to love themselves as they are instead of pushing them to change their identity if they have questions?”
        “When did Dr. Seuss become offensive but sex/nudity is creeping into family films?”
        But instead of seriously pondering these issues, we make them into a brainless political arguments. We can’t claim to be a tolerant society one second and then mercilessly go on a witches hunt among well-meaning citizens the next!

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