S.J Boyd Literary Criticism

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Response to Literary Critique of S.J. Boyd In my opinion S.J Boyd did a wonderful job criticizing the Lord of the Flies. I liked how he described the book on the fact that the boys are suffering a terrible disease of being a human. That is what I believe the Lord of the Flies is all about. Golding was trying to display that humans have a sickness hidden inside them. This sickness is the urge and desire to be savage, and the longing to have power. Jack proves this by trying to obtain leadership right off of the bat. He wants to control all of the boys and when Ralph is chosen instead of him he gets extremely upset. I also liked the fact that Boyd described that Golding used irony in the setting. The boys are escaping a war and are trapped on a tropical island. When most people think of an island they think of paradise and comfort. These boys felt this way at first, but as Boyd put it Golding was showing the foolishness of optimism in the world because the island was not paradise at all. I did not think of this at first, but now I completely agree with it. Everyday people live their lives as If nothing bad in the world exists. I think that Golding was trying to portray this optimism as idiotic. During the war he probably witnessed people carrying on with their lives as if nothing was going on when in fact many people where dying and the human race was turning in Golding’s eyes savage. One thing I disagree with is the topic of the officer that saved the boys. Boyd stated his belief as the officer was regarding the boy’s war as “fun and games” compared to the war. I don’t believe that the officer was trying to make this point at all. I think that in a way the book was over analyzed in this part and the officer was just an ironic rescue. In my opinion the officer had no idea of what the situation was on the island and was simply making a
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