The rebel of Lucifer – my understanding of Lord of the Flies

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Staring at the ending credits of the movie Lord of the Flies, I truly wished that I had never seen it. It was definitely not one of my favorite, but once watched, it became almost impossible for me to forget about it. The uncomfortable feeling it induced was so strange and complex that it was difficult to say what disturbed me indeed. Even after reading the official interpretations about original evil, the uncomfortable feeling was still there, for although I was totally convinced by the views of the literary experts, I had a feeling that there was something else.
Then what is it that disturbed me so much? Simply speaking, it is a question unanswered: Why Jack? Why did the children choose Jack instead of 洛夫? You may explain it by elaborating on the evil tendency of the human soul, but besides it there must be something else that attracted the children who, although have not yet formed proper judgment between good and evil, have the natural ability to tell what they prefer. In a word, there must be something at which Jack was right while 洛夫 was wrong.
But what was it? At the beginning of the novel, when the two kids first met, 洛夫 was the more popular one: he was more handsome, a little bit bigger in size, and most importantly, he had the conch, the symbol of democratic power. His initial advantage against Jack was obvious, but Jack gradually took over. How? It is noticeable that Jack was a person with a strong desire to control, starting from the way he led the choir: even on a deserted island did he try to keep order and maintain control. After failing to become leader of the crowd, he quickly found himself a place as chief of the hunting team. As 洛夫 had noticed, Jack had 「the voice of one who knew his own mind.」 How about 洛夫? According to Piggy, 洛夫 was 「sensible」. What he wanted was to go back to the civilized society, but he put his only hope of rescue, the fire, under the control of Jack ("洛夫, I'll split up the choir--my hunters, that is--into groups, and we'll be responsible for keeping the fire going--"). Even after Jack’s negligence lost them a precious chance to be rescued, he still relied on Jack for the maintenance of the fire.
At first, Jack was all alone, for leisure was much more attractive for the boys than the fruitless effort of hunting. But Jack was determined 「『I went on,』 said Jack. 『I let them go. I had to go on. I— 』」. He was driven by a desire to kill, though there was no need of it since they had enough fruit to eat. Why did he found himself so tiring a job as hunting when he could have been enjoying the sunshine and water as everybody else? He was definitely not just looking for something to do, but was again seeking control: the control of pigs, the control of food, the control of the hunting team, the control of the stone fortress, and most importantly, the control of life. While 洛夫, after finishing the construction of the huts on the beach, what he did was mostly waiting: waiting for some passing ships or planes to take them home. He did call a number of meetings, but most of the meetings were fruitless for they could not reach a conclusion. Being a leader, 洛夫 always failed to keep his ground. He was furious at Jack’s negligence of the fire, but when Jack offered him the meat, he eagerly accepted. He was aware of the aggressiveness of Jack and the antagonism between him and Piggy, but was never determined to settle it, never determined to take sides. At last, he even forgot that he was the leader and had to be reminded by Piggy to regain his self-image.
The biggest difference between Jack and 洛夫 was their attitude towards life. For 洛夫, he considered life as something that he himself as a child could not master, so he put the hope on others: on Jack who kept the fire, on the unknown adults who might come and take them home, thus losing control of his own life, putting his fate at the mercy of others. But Jack was quite different, he took the responsibility to hunt, to gather a group, to paint, to sing, to build a fortress all on himself, although he didn』t even have to. Instead of returning to the existing civilization, he was the one who tried to rebuild the civilization, though primitive, on his own.
During the process of gaining control, Jack revived the underlying evil force in his soul, which was true beyond denial. But the sense of 「control」, once used on someone other than God, is always related to evil and sin. Think about Lucifer the seraphim who refused to bow before Adam. Once violating God’s will and seeking control of his own, the previous Angel of Light became Satan. But according to Paradise Lost by Milton, the wish to make his own judgment, to be his own savior, to look at the world with independent eye was so strong that Lucifer would rather sacrifice the heaven for it.
So was Adam who abandoned Eden for the forbidden fruit. Instead of obeying God, he chose the advice of Lucifer, just like the children who chose Jack instead of 洛夫. It is rather interesting to notice that the forbidden fruit was the fruit on the tree of knowledge. It seemed that even ancient man had realized that knowledge is a dangerous thing: there is some knowledge that should never be obtained. It might not be a mere coincidence that the background of the novel Lord of the Flies was the third world war, a war triggered by nuclear weapon, the superlative development of human knowledge.
The writer seemed to imply that man is doomed to be destroyed: even the kids are taking the same route as their elders, gaining too much control on something that they are unable to rein. If this desire of power, of knowledge, of controlling one’s own fate is an inborn birthmark of human nature, then ever since Lucifer rebelled, since Adam went out of Eden, man is destined to die. But since it is a destiny of our own choice, not only of the children in the novel, not only of modern man, but of Adam and of Lucifer who could have enjoyed the heavenly peace so much desired, there might be something right about it that we could not yet understand.   舉報