This week in Honors English, we did a couple reflections on chapter nine, which is an utterly anathematic chapter. The boys have descended into practically complete savagery, it is extremely disturbing to read about, especially given that it is meant to express the authors idea of what would happen to mankind without common sense and laws to keep everything in order, is sickening to think about. And in some ways, children have the right idea about the way things should go, so if this disastrous situation was brought upon adults, the outcome would be unthinkable. However, presently history is being created in the United States, and this will be something for future textbooks. It’s called the “99% movement” or “Occupy Wall Street” and though it is just beginning, it already has millions of American citizens eager to join in the protests, in order to hopefully change our terrible economy. This relates to the book when you think about the troubles caused by the conflicting ideas between Ralph and Jack. Now it’s not exactly a “citizen vs. the government” scenario, but the boys are facing a situation, where the rules they had for themselves that used to be working just fine have started crumbling right before their eyes, which is exactly what is happening today, In the very town of Napa, and millions of other towns across the nation. This is extremely monumental, in both the book and real life. In the book; it’s monumental because it has caused two groups to form and the oh-so symbolic conch, to become completely meaningless which--needless to say—is going to mean the beginning of total and utter chaos, unfortunately starting with the death of the most innocent and bright little boy on the island: Simon. Simon had the greatest insight out of every other character,--piggy coming in as a close second, but still not holding a candle to Simon—but Golding chose to kill him off, which we as readers can only take to mean that things are now going to go from bad to worse. The scene of the barbaric murder was a candid, foreshadowing further misery to befall the island as we sprint towards the climax. In real life; this protest is monumental because for over 250 years the government of the United States has lasted longer than any other government in the world in all of history, and the last thing this country needs is for a civil war to break out, but hopefully we will be able to keep this a peaceful protest, and strictly political when it comes to deciding the changes that will lead to the reform of the economy.

On Friday we watched the trailer of the introduction for the original film of Lord of the Flies, it was full of symbols that are later given further thought in the novel, such as the sound of drums and school children singing, and images of rockets and fighter planes. The images reflect the environment that the children were coming from before the crash, and the sound of the drums in particular are played to a beat that connotes a tribal sacrifice of sorts, which couldn’t be more spot on when it comes to the animalistic state of mind that seeps into the minds of the developing brains of the young boys.