January 23, 2026
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Peter Brook’s version of Lord of the Flies opens to church bells and a stream of photos from and English boys’ school. The photos and audio include math lessons and angelic sounding chorale arrangements, which are quickly replaced by drums and a cricket match interspersed with missiles, airplanes behind Big Ben, and a chalkboard list of evacuation plans. I take it, then, that these private school boys who have been raised in comfort and class are purportedly heading to safety and avoiding the war.
Unfortunately, the plane crashes onto a deserted island and the boys must rely on their own skills to survive. It starts out alright. They gather together, learn names, begin to assign tasks. Quickly, however, their conch shell society begins to unravel at nearly the same moment that it’s created. Of course, there’s a power struggle. Of course, there are squabbles about classes and rights and duties. I believe that all of this might be overcome in some due time, but there are two events which seem to change the narrative for me. First, only one boy has a knife. This creates an immediate and obvious imbalance of power. He is able to carve, to hunt, to kill. And he wields this power imbalance with pride. The second difference is the discussion of a monster or ghost.
Once the ghost-like figure enters the imaginations of these elementary and middle school aged boys, there’s no going back. More powerful than Jack’s knife, the boys’ individual imaginations take hold. This individual imagination then morphs into a collective imagination. Though the idea began with the suggestion of a very large snake, it quickly moves into a monster. The boys think about what the presence of a monster might look like, and then someone suggests it could be a ghost. This ghost is more present than absent, controlling their minds. Fear becomes the norm. And once the community runs on fear, Jack – the keeper of the knife – can do nothing wrong. They follow him to all sorts of evils simply because they trust that he has the power to avoid the ghost.
The children are all action, all mob. Only three boys provide any real thoughtful contemplation, which unfortunately, moves too slowly for the mob. The children philosophers are overruled and quickly obsolete. Piggy – one of the thinkers – proposes that ghosts just don’t make sense. Then he says that adults meet and think and discuss. If the boys were to follow the example of adults, then things would be alright. Instead, the majority responds by moving into a cave and painting their faces. Face paint signals their complete acceptance of tribal life.
In our recent film series discussion, Gary Schoepfel asked who or what produces the disastrous results on the island? The question is extremely difficult to answer. The conditions seem pleasant at first – warm weather, beautiful ocean, and lush green tropics. This quickly gives way to thoughts of the unknown. They focus on the snake, on the monster, then the ghost. So, island conditions affect their thought process. Perhaps the killings would not have happened in a familiar setting. Perhaps monsters are harder to conjure in familiar settings. Considering, however, that Brook begins the film with a backdrop of war, I’m not convinced that the island conditions offer a holistic answer.
Gary also had us read a selection from Thomas Hobbes’ “On Commonwealth” before the discussion. In this excerpt, Hobbes claims that individuals must submit their wills to the will of one who will rule all. He terms this “real unity” a commonwealth. Hobbes writes:
“This is the generation of that great Leviathan, or rather (to speak more reverently) of that mortal god to which we owe under the immortal God our peace and defense. For by this authority, given him by every particular man in the commonwealth, he hath the use of so much power and strength conferred on him, that by terror thereof he is enabled to perform the wills of them all, to peace at home and mutual aid against their enemies abroad. And in him consisteth the essence of the commonwealth; which, to define it, is one person, of whose acts a great multitude, by mutual covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their peace and common defense.”
So, these boys enter into a pact without fully understanding what kind of pact they’re entering, only that it might keep them safe. Safety in numbers and safety with weapons wins out over safety through understanding or safety through discussion. In other words, the boys are ruled by their fear which overturns any bit of education, reason, or contemplation. They focus on the presence of unknowns. To me, this feels like the beginnings of a progression described by C. S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain.
He writes:
“Suppose you were told there was a tiger in the next room: you would know that you were in danger and would probably feel fear. But if you were told ‘There is a ghost in the next room,’ and believed it, you would feel, indeed, what is often called fear, but of a different kind. It would not be based on the knowledge of danger, for no one is primarily afraid of what a ghost may do to him, but of the mere fact that it is a ghost. It is ‘uncanny’ rather than dangerous, and the special kind of fear it excites may be called Dread. With the Uncanny one has reached the fringes of the Numinous. Now suppose that you were told simply ‘There is a mighty spirit in the other room,’ and believed it. Your feelings would then be even less like the mere fear of danger: but the disturbance would be profound. You would feel wonder and a certain shrinking – a sense of inadequacy to cope with such a visitant and of prostration before it – an emotion which might be expressed in Shakespeare’s words ‘Under it my genius is rebuked.’ This feeling may be described as awe, and the object which excites it is the Numinous.”
These children stand in awe of the potential of real tigers, ghostly dread, and the ineffable numinous. Incapable of comprehending ideas of the numinous and destitute of real conversation, they rely on the only resource at their fingertips: feeble human power. This enables Jack to use the boys to commit crimes without questioning their reason.
So, to answer Gary’s question – the presence (or creation) of a monster preys upon humanity’s weakness: fear – and the results are disastrous.
Photo credit: Shutterstock/ ZR10
