Lord of the Flies vs. the Destructors Essay

Fiction looks at all ranges of topics through the eyes of so many diverse characters. Lord of the Flies and The Destructors is no different in the sense you see two extremely striking situations through the eyes of surprising characters. These stories both take a look at society and the primitive aspects it can have. The main characters in the story are both children of young ages exhibiting surprising and sometimes extremely shocking behavior displaying a loss of innocence. They differ in the sense that Lord of Flies looks at how savage a human can get in desperate situations while the other is how savage a person can get against a society that feel victimized against. These two novels have similarities that can be easily identified. They both display groups of adolescents that are interacting with extreme situations. Lord of Flies depicts children stranded on an island and they must come together in order to find these solutions. Desperation sets in which motivates them to start acting more and more savage as time goes on. This is similar to The Destructors because the short story displays a similar group of young children who display savage behavior to a community. While one is a residential community and another is an island, the island represents a community for these boys for the time of the story because they are stranded upon it. Both stories display a power struggle through two characters in them. Lord of The Flies shows this through Jack and Ralph and In the Destructors this is seen through Trevor and Blackie. Jack and Ralph both attempted to become chief of the new tribe, Ralph winning by a few votes. However, as time goes on their primitive behaviors shine through creating a divide between the children and Jack develops his own tribe. Jack’s influence motivates the children to become violent and savage toward Ralph and his group, resulting in killing one of Ralph’s friend, Piggy. All of the teamwork and civil behavior that Ralph represents is slowly gone until the children all turn into monsters, which Jack represents. Ralph was about structure and finding a rescue, which is evident in his design of two groups, one for food and one for a fire signal while jack was all about savage behavior and power over the other children. In the Destructors, Blackie and Trevor both have potential to be the leader of the Wormsley Common Gang and it can be seen through their dialogue that they are both aware that they want it. Blackie tries to display this by attempting to prevent Trevor from voting on what kind of trouble they get into when he late to their meeting but Trevor does not allow him. The peak of this struggle is when are discussing ideas and Trevor tells them about destroying Old Misery’s house from the inside. Blackie attempts his best to discourage with the potential of police and the inability to accomplish this but Trevor continue to push the idea until it is voted for and chosen. This symbolized the end of Blackie’s reign of the group and when one member asks â€Å"How do we start?† Blackie simply walks away saying, â€Å" He’ll tell you.† Implying that he knows what has occurred and realizing his role of leadership is taken over. Both groups in each story displayed how easily a dynamic can change through Power. When you look at the stories from another angle, you can see that the messages they have differ extremely. Lord of the Flies was all about human nature and the ends it can go. This novel is a timeless one because of the message it sends through the least likely characters, young boys. The Destructors is a more believable story because the type of violence that is seen in the story. While damage to someone’s home is awful and the manner in which they did it was extremely special, Lord of The Flies uses violence against one another and results in psychotic breaks and children losing their lives at the hands of others. The longer these children are with one another, they start to lose more of their humanity and gain more primal instincts in ways of acting. Jack is the best candidate to display this because of how he grows more and more corrupt. After starting his own tribe, he has enabled himself to dictate what he feels his followers should do. He allowed them to become savage as well. If he felt that other children needed to be punished, he felt not hesitation and even was to the point of murdering another child. He started wearing clay masks, which represents the symbolism of having a new more primal faà §ade. The novel wraps up with Ralph being rescued but crying because he reflects on everything that has happened and how far these young children have fallen and to what points they all reached. The Destructors really depicts a group of children who aim to destroy a neighborhood leaving an old man’s house for last. These children differ from the ones in Lord of The Flies because though they do some pretty questionable acts, it is more delinquency rather than primal acts. These boys are doing violent actions because of the violence through the war they witness around them. With World War II going on, these children are witness to bombings often leaving them feeling with the need to do something. They decide to become a gang that will make their mark around London, causing crime one more extreme than the next. Trevor motivates these boys to destroy an old man’s house but instead of normally destroying it while he is away, they decide to wreck it from the inside out. Trevor says, â€Å"We’d be like worms, don’t you see, in an apple.† (pg. 12) However, mid construction the old man, Old Misery, comes home unexpected and is locked away until the job is finished. The ending displays Old Misery sobbing as his house is destroyed and the lorry that was around ended the story by laughing saying â€Å"There’s nothing personal but you got to admit it’s funny.† (pg. 22) This is actually the exact opposite reaction of what Lord of The Flies displayed because even though Mr. Thomas was sobbing at his loss similar to Ralph’s reaction, the Lorry laughed at the comedy of the situation. These stories all depict children doing things that typically we would not expect to see in society. However, the lack of a society in both novels has allowed behavior of this magnitude to occur. These stories show us that though they are different kinds of crimes and in different context, society is what can be considered the common thread through both stories. Society and it’s influence can really effect the people that are in it and if you are in a society that doesn’t provide a positive structure, you could display the actions seen in Lord of The Flies or The Destructors.