Compare and Contrast: Lord of the Flies Movie and Book
The differences between William Golding’s allegorical novel Lord of the Flies and its film adaptation are evident. Firstly, when marooned on the island in the book, the boys are completely isolated from any adults. This comes in complete contrast to the movie where one of the pilots, though injured and mostly unconscious, survives the crash and is stranded along with the boys. An adult would remind the children of their home in England and of society’s laws and norms; the animalistic and instinctive behavior of the boys may have been curbed with the tangible memory of civilization that the pilot gives. Another difference is the amount of cursing done in the movie as opposed to the mostly clean language of the novel. The addition of vulgar language gives the allusion that the boys are much older, to the point of near adolescence. It also gives the impression that the boys are slightly uncivilized to begin with, as the vulgarity is improper of English young men. These variations between the book and movie can completely alter the impressions the story gives and its overall plot development. While the novel Lord of the Flies and its movie have many differences, they tell the same story and keep many of the major events. In both the book and movie, Simon is killed in a frenzy by the boys when they mistake him for the beast, an important milestone in the eventual descent into hysteria by the boys as this was their first murder. Another constant is Jack’s breakaway from the main tribe to form his own with him as leader. This event is necessary since it is the first in a chain of events breaking up the order Ralph had tried to establish with the boys. Eventually Jack’s tribe comes to include almost every boy, destroying the society Ralph had hoped to achieve with the children. Even though creative changes were made to the movie version of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, there were many scenes and details obligatory to the plot of the