Horror And Solicitude
I participated in a study group of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Did I read the book when in high school or is my memory from college? I am not sure. The book is widely known, a parable of sorts. A group of English boarding school boys is marooned on a nameless South Pacific island. The world from which they came is at war. Not knowing when or if they will be rescued, they set about utilizing the resources afforded by the small island for food and shelter. They also organize themselves with a leader, ostensibly to keep a smoky fire going to aid the necessary rescue. Things fall apart, devolve into a nightmare of violence, murder.
I was impressed that Golding suggests that Nature is always in the background, the immense frame for everything that takes place on the Island. He describes what happens to the bodies in the aftermath of the killing of Simon, and the murder of Piggy. The words conjure a scene of abject horror, and of solicitude, nature fulfilling a timeless role. The body, portrayed as sacred, is received by Nature from which it came. Here are the passages which I have in mind:
Somewhere over the darkened curve of the world the sun and moon
were pulling, and the film of water on the earth planet was held, bulging
slightly on one side while the solid core turned. The great wave of the tide
moved farther along the island and the water lifted. Softly, surrounded
by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the
steadfast constellations, Simon’s dead body moved out toward the open
sea.
***
High overhead, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment,
leaned all his weight on the lever.
Ralph heard the great rock before he saw it…
The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch
exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Piggy,
saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, traveled through the air
sideways from the rock, turning over as he went. The rock bounded
twice and was lost in the forest. Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his
back across the square red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff
came out and turned red. Piggy’s arms and legs twitched a bit, like a
pig’s after it has been killed. Then the sea breathed again in a long, slow
sigh, the water boiled white and pink over the rock; and when it went,
sucking back again, the body of Piggy was gone.
