Lord of the Flies vs. Lost: the Story of Island Survival

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The 2005 pilot episode of Lost borrows generously from the themes and setting of the classic novel by William Golding, Lord of the Flies. Fear and a need for the emergence of a leader to create order following a disaster are the first two themes established in both films. The major difference between the two films lies in the use of technology. This allowed Lost to portray a far more powerful and dramatic plane crash and this gave me a better understanding of the horrors of such a crash and ensuing survival on an island. Another point of comparison is how the stress was handled by the children and the adults. LOTF and Lost have shared themes. Both movies are stories of survival, both take place on a tropical deserted island where the chance of rescue is remote and in both, the characters arrive on the island following a plane crash. The fight for survival is foremost. Following the plane crash, the characters find themselves needing to establish a sense of order so that they may survive this extreme situation. They choose a leader; Ralph in LOTF and Jack in Lost. Fear is a prominent theme in both movies. Both the boys and adults struggle with the fear of the unknown. They are frightened of the darkness of the jungle and what they cannot see. Neither group could clearly see the “beast”. This creature killed the pilot in Lost and the shadowy figure of a beast in LOTF shaped the behaviours of the boys. For example, the littluns would not go into the jungle to get firewood for fear of running into the beast. They preferred to stay on the beach and collect wet wood rather than venture into the jungle to find dry wood for the fire. The older boys willingly sought the beast. This is surprising. Of the two groups, I thought the adults would be less fearful than a group of young boys in search of a monster. There is a marked technological difference between the film

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