Things Fall Apart takes place in West Africa during the late 19th century. Thematically it deals with daily life and hardships of a tribe and its encounter with the arrival of missionaries. Lord of the Flies is about a group of young teenaged British school boys and their conflicts on how to survive on an uninhabited tropical island where they have been stranded without adults after an accident during wartime.
The theme that is to be presented is related to the conflict between the individual and society. The aim is to show how personal attitudes may become a death trap if they do not follow the dominant ideology within a community during times of fundamental change. The argument made is that both novels suggest that an individual is risking his life if his attitudes are challenging the rising tide of a radical take-over within his society. The analysis will put forward a number of characters and subjects in order to support the thesis.
Okonkwo is the protagonist in Things Fall Apart. He is one of the male tribal members. He is a static character with a fiery and impatient temper who acts more violent against the Christian mission than his clan can support. His way of encountering cultural changes will ultimately drive him to extinction. Okonkwo's last offence against his clan and its religion – the act of intentionally causing his own death – is the culmination of a series of insubordinations he commits as an individual, rather than as a member of his community. Throughout his life, he balances an uncontrolled anger that is on the verge of exploding.
In Lord of the Flies some characters are acting more civilised than the rest of the group. They are more rationally oriented, empathetic and sensitive. But their attitudes are challenging the leader of an opponent wing within the group who is seeking to establish unity through blind obedience. The goodnatured boys do not realise the serious danger they are heading into. Somehow trapped in their own ideas or by naivety they continue arguing or acting their personal points of view. The more they cling to their unique personalities, the more they are seen by the oppressive leader as self-interested institutions and deviants who threaten the creation of unity within the group. As the conflict escalates their exclusion is increasing and becomes a threat of death to them.
In the society of Things Fall Apart men are dominant. They have power and rank higher in the hierarchy than women and children, who often are treated badly. But Okonkwo uses this right too heavily, even when it is forbidden by the tradition of the tribe. Clansmen are scared by his behaviour to overreact in social life and towards the sacred. The tribe does not agree with this but they do not rebuke him much due to Okonkwo's rank. When he once threatened to kill his own son an uncle to him just ordered him to stop beating the boy and commented the behaviour as madness. However, Okonkwo is an honour-able and respected member of his community and receives noteworthy tasks due to his earlier years as a powerful wrestler and a warrior of great skill. But, he himself despises men without possessions and titles or men showing female tendencies and weakness. These males are risking Okonkwo's pouncing manners of insulting. Despite a warning from the oldest member of the clan not to participate in a hu-man sacrifice of his stepson Okonkwo not only ignores the urge but carries out the ritual killing him-self. Okonkwo is incautious even when handling weapons. Once he nearly causes the death of one of his wives when he deliberately shoots at her. On another occasion he indirectly inflicts the death of a clan boy when one of his rifles explodes in the boy's face. Humiliated by the Christian mission and the white man's court, and finding no more support from his tribesmen, Okonkwo kills a white messenger in outraged, self-absorbed anger, and then hangs himself. Killing a relative or a clansman is against the customs of the clan. Committing suicide is an offence against the Goddesses and desecrates the land. The body of a suicide victim is taboo and is excluded from the privileges of the clan.
In Lord of the Flies, Ralph, the protagonist of the novel, knows what characterises a leader. He shows empathy by saying that they all soon will be rescued, and that he will provide them all shelter, food, water to drink and time for free play. Ralph is rational in setting up a plan for how these issues will be implemented. He calls the others to meetings by blowing into a conch and using it as a symbol of their unity; holding it gives individuals the right to speak in public gatherings. However, when the group as a whole begins to follow another headman Ralph is not able to prevent it, but he does not accept the loss of his leadership role. Due to his civilised nature he openly criticises the manners of the new oppressive leader. Ralph stubbornly refuses to subordinate himself to the antagonist's ideas. His attitude is disturbing to the establishment of the autocratic community. Ralph becomes a hunted outcast, but he is miraculously rescued from death’s door by the author's sudden intervention of “a divine being” – a navy officer.
Simon is by nature good, a sensitive shy boy who has an internal desire to do good just for the sake of doing good; unselfishly he supports the younger boys and assists the group in all sorts of things. He is an important foil character to the antagonist. It is Simon who is receiving a prophecy that Evil is something each human carries within himself. In his eagerness to reveal his vision he naively does not realise that the group of wild dancing boys he stumbles into on the beach are carrying out a hunting ritual in honour of the Beast. There, on their “altar”, Simon is slain and sacrificed; there his body and blood are received by the Evil, because his individual attitudes are risking the consolidation of the society in worshipping of the Beast.
Piggy is a sensitive character who often questions those who think they have the right to decide for others. He shows precocious tendencies. He often gets excited and naively harps on and on about his personal matters. In order to silence him from talking he is made a laughing stock of his way to be chatty, or for his weak appearance: he is very fat, has asthma and he is wearing thick glasses. Piggy's persistent querulous obstinacy gives him low status in the group. The headmen of the group definitely get tired of Piggy when he in his last gesture thinks he can, if eager enough, claim back his stolen glasses. Piggy is risking his life because his personal attitude is disturbing the consolidation of the community of the strongest. The new clan has no time for such a childlike stubbornness and erase it once and for all by killing him.
Neither Okonkwo nor the good-hearted boys are flexible enough to let go of their individual attitudes. They remain somewhat blinded of their own ideas or immediate feelings. Their lack of discretion prevents them from sensing the fatal destiny of their lives. They cannot temporarily force themselves to compromise and accept the deprived conditions in which they are living. The possibility of disguising their opinions while biding their time and building an underground movement does not even occur to them. They all die because they unconsciously gambled with their lives in confronting a fundamentalist society for their own reasons.
Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua (1992). Things Fall Apart. New York: Knopf
Golding, William (2006). Lord of the Flies: a novel. 1. Perigree premium ed. New York: Perigee
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