Lord of the Flies // William Golding
This book changed my outlook on humanity forever. Ralph, Piggy and Jack illustrate three distinct personalities that are often found in classrooms across the world, however Golding portrayed a loss of innocence to chaos. Lord of the Flies frightened me because it is actually very believable, not the setting, but rather the chain of events that occurred due to a lack of order and authority. I never appreciated the importance of structure and rules within my life until I witnessed what could happen once they were taken away. I knew humans were classified as mammals, but I had always seen us as separate from the natural world. Golding showed me that this was far from the truth: we are nothing more than animals, what makes us different is we have developed a functioning society. Without it, we would simply drop into chaos and submit to ‘the beast’ within.
I had been sheltered from the crueller side of humanity before reading this novel. Before, evil was something I associated with Villains, not 12 year-old boys.