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 "Lord of the Flies"- Loss of civilisation

How English schoolboys become primitive savages

The book "Lord of the Flies" was written by William Golding about 1954. It's about a group of boys that had an aeroplane crash and stranded on an lonely island. What first seemed like a paradise, becomes more and more hell and savagery.

In chapter four of the novel, the paradise is beginning to fade and the loss of civilisation breaks through.

The first hint is that no one cares about the little boy who has disappeared- a sign for the careless way in the community. No one cares for some littlun anymore- a thing that would never happen in civilisation. Then there is the fact that Maurice throws sand in the eye of Percival- he still feels something like a guilty conscience but in fact he doesn't apologize. Something slightly similar happens when Roger starts throwing stones at Henry- he doesn't dare to hit him properly but he throws them nearer and nearer at him. Both boys are held back by the rest of civilised thinking, feelings and rules. But both begin to lose their respect.

The loss of civilisation starts to creep into their conscience. An excellent example is Jack. With him, the loss of civilisation starts. He is the one who begins to act like an animal, a savage. He is now so keen to hunt and kill that he even doesn't care about the fire which is a symbol for getting rescued, for coming back into civilisation. When he paints his face to a mask, he transforms himself from a civilised human being into a cruel savage, longing for blood and killing. When the hunters come back to the fireplace, they all are bloodthirsty, smeared all over with blood. Their thoughts, everything is full with blood, killing and cruelty. They are singing "Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood." They are so high that they don't realise what it means when Ralf says that because of letting the fire go out a ship that passed near the island didn't notice them, that they missed the chance to get rescued. It seems as if they don't care about going back home, going back into civilization anymore. And they also don't care about the feelings and thoughts of the other boys. So they don't care about community, also a sign of civilization, anymore.

In the following argument between Ralf and Jack, Jack finally apologizes, but more because he wants to have his peace than for feeling real guilt. Then he turns his anger, his excitement against Piggy, who is weaker than Ralf. The open violence against Piggy shows that Jack totally forgets the rules of civilization. The broken specs of Piggy stand for the destroyed respect for the others. And respect for other human beings again equals civilization. But even Ralf slightly begins to lose his civilized behaviour when "He accepted a piece of half-raw meat and gnawed it like a wolf."(p.71,l.21/22). After there is temporary peace again, the hunters start anew with their description of their bloody hunt. They describe it in a cruel way, are proud and exited about uttering things like "one for his knob!" or "Give him a fourpenny one!"(p.72,l.34/35).

At the end of the scene they dance, reenact the hunting-scene and sing their slogan "Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in." It's something like a ritual, like savage races have it, dancing around the fire, thanking whoever for their luck of a successful hunting. The English schoolboys have changed into native, primitive savages.

 The American Dream is still alive

The inauguration speech of George W. Bush

Keywords in his inauguration speech are the American story, the USA's position in the world, the American promise, the unity of their nation, responsibility, justice and opportunity, equality and some religious aspects.

He starts his speech by welcoming some past presidents, among them his father, and by thanking President Clinton for the work that he has done. After that he talks about the development that America has made from the day they became independent up to now, that America has a story, the American story. The unity of America is important to him, that everyone has a chance because all are born equal. But that can only be if the citizens follow the same course, obey the same rules and teach their children to do so, too. For him an immigrant who does so is more American than a born American who does not.

He compares America with "a rock in the raging sea", which means that America has a firm position in the moving and troubled world. And that America will spread seed upon the wind, which stands for America bringing good influences and examples to the rest of the world.

And he talks, even if hidden, about the problems America has: the big gulf between the rich and the poor, the black and the white, the hidden prejudice. He wants his citizens to live united according to the American promise and believes that their course is right because of the larger power they are guided by.

In his opinion he is a servant of the state, the united civility, just like his predecessors were. Now it's up to him taking over this duty, taking peacefully over authority and, as his successors will do so, too, he sees himself as a part of the American history, a part of an ongoing process.

Over all his speech is not modest but very patriotic, an attitude that works well in America.

My personal opinion about the American Dream

The American Dream- something I have often heard but never really thought about. It was just a phrase that you use while talking or thinking about America. Even during the first lessons we talked about this subject, it never meant anything special to me. But one day I suddenly realised how complex this subject is, how wide its arms extend into different spheres and how deep you can dive into its million definitions. And I became so fascinated that I started to talk with people about it outside school, for example at parties. They all had different definitions and opinions about it but I came to one conclusion- something equal to the American dream you do not find anywhere else in the whole world.

But what is the American Dream and does it really exist? I can only try to find my own definition:
The original ideology of the American Dream has been totally different to the items it contains today. When the first settlers came to America, they had a dream, the dream of new land, better conditions, to be without a master and to live in this new land ever after happily. They had to hold on against on their own against the Indians and later on the Blacks. And they thought they had the right to do it. In their opinion they had to struggle hard to succeed, to get the land they deserved. And they passed this patriotism from one generation on to the next until today. When Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, his dream was liberty, the pursuit of happiness, that all men are equal and freedom from the oppression by the English government.

Over the years the definitions of the American Dream changed with every decade except for one
thing- all the immigrants who came to America had the idea of their personal freedom and liberty. I think most of them at least reached this aim. The rest of their hopes, like getting rich and famous- in fact totally different things compared to the old ideology- often failed. And those who failed or succeeded could have tried their luck somewhere else.

America is not the economy wonder anymore it was decades ago, there are other systems like Europe which are much better today. Furthermore the "from rags to riches" principle does not work anymore, because today you need more and more connections to succeed and you will usually reach success only by mental effort, by studying etc. Physical effort does not count anymore. We do not live in a world of agriculture, animals and Indians anymore, but of computers, cell phones and other technological and medical achievements.

If you fall in America, you fall until you hit the ground, in other countries there is a social net to cushion you. And that is why I think the American dream of today is fake- not because it does not exist, but it is not what it seems to be. The Americans just ignore that there is another side. Poverty, drug- addiction, the school system and things like that are huge problems in America´s social system, which does not work. But American have this incredible patriotism that makes them forget that not only other countries make mistakes. If they talk about Germany and what happened in the Second World War they likely forget what their ancestors did to the Indians and the black slaves. Politicians use this patriotism to make the people believe there still is an American Dream. And most of the people believe in it. This working unity of the whole country is fascinating.You will not find anyone who says so readily that he is proud of his land like the Americans do. I think it is not impossible that there could be a German or European Dream as well, I am sad we do not have this unity and I quite envy the Americans for their faith in their land, although I think there is not so much to be proud of today, because it is all such a fake. I find it ridiculous when the President talks about his big misdeed that he drove drunk when he was 25. But the Americans do love things like that. If I had to give my opinion in one sentence, it would be that the American Dream of today is rubbish, but an admirable one.

Multiculturalism - the future or the ruin of America?

How much multiculturalism is enough ?

The same problem in America may come from another reason: in America there are ghettos for nearly every foreign population- f. i. Chinatown, the Bronx, Harlem; there are Indian, Italian, Jewish quarters and so on and on. For years it had been all right like this for the white Americans, although I think not for the rest, but now the number of non-white seems to increase: in some years more non-white immigrants may live in America than Americans. You can find newspapers and magazines in quite every language, especially Hispanic and Puerto Rican.
There are so many people of every country that there is no more need for them to speak or learn English. And now all the states, which are concerned with this fact, face the same question- how much multiculturalism is enough?
Of course it is the right of every man to live and practice his own culture- but how far should this extend? I think it is important that children of immigrants do not forget what their origin is, that they know their native language and can speak it and now about their culture, but also take part and interest in the things of the land they live in. It should be tried to unite both parts. But reality shows something else. Mostly, there is no living together but a living side by side. In the sameway the Americans had no interest to share other cultures, there is now no more interest by many immigrants. And the children are the often the one who suffer most. How can they integrate in their American community, f. i. school, when they do not have to speak English at home, because their parents are not able to speak it or do not want to. They get expelled from the American community they have to deal with.
There is a vicious circle: Because children are not taught by their parents to integrate themselves into the foreign community they have no chance to get integrated, and so they keep a piece of their community excluded from the life of the land they live in. They have no chances to rise, to get a good job. There are a lot of pupils who do not speak the language in which they get taught in school.
I think it is a shame that there now is this battle which culture or community can oppress the other. It seems that there is no more possibility to make all those cultures live together. The reason for that are the years of exclusion by the Americans.
But nevertheless there must be some rules the immigrants should obey. They should speak the language of the land they live in, they should adapt a little bit to the way of life of this country and they should motivate their children to do so as well.
I do not want those immigrants to give up their cultural and ethnic origin, but they should cooperate with the people who pay their wages and accept them. There must be a way for a well- balanced way of living together.
States like America should try to improve the conditions for the native countries of their immigrants, so there is not so much need for them to try to find a better life in America anymore- because under the momentary conditions they might not find anything much better
than in their home-country.

Crime management: Prevention not Punishment is the key

The death penalty is really antique and belongs to the past

In these days, where every kind of crime rises more and more, there is more than ever the need for a good working crime management. It seems that in America this management stands under the motto of "Tough problems call for though solutions" and the best evidence for this is the death penalty. But is the death penalty really the suitable way to contain crime?

I do not think so, because at the moment when somebody murders or commits an armed robbery or something comparable, he surely does not think about the danger of getting executed at all. So the death penalty is more a punishing measure than a preventive one. There must be other possibilities to prevent criminal actions.

First of all, there should be more preventive work. If you have a look at the social backgrounds of robbers, highwaymen, felons or murderers, there is often a lot of poverty and misery in there. That is not the case with all criminals, but with many. Does here not lie a chance to prevent people from committing crimes? More money should be spent on poor districts, better social work and schools, so that those poor children are given a chance for a good life, a good job. The state should renew the districts and the houses in there and should open institutions for sport and other free time activities. There should be sport and music contests. And there must be social programs for juvenile offenders - not only punishment. The state should try to employ as many poor people as possible.
Secondly, there must be a huge change in police work. The methods they sometimes use and the way they work is inadequate. You often hear about policemen violating their prisoners. Is it a wonder if people start to hate and disrespect police? Self- justice by the police should be prosecuted and punished stricter. And the police must start to think. If there is a young person that tries to rob a store and gets caught, it does not have any effect if the policemen violate him or punish him as hard as possible- on the contrary. Next time he will do something worse. But if they cared for persons like this, searched for the reason of their criminal behaviour and tried to do something for them, the chance to prevent them from doing another crime would be much higher. So instead of only punishing, there should be a determination by the police to help those offenders.

If all those things do not succeed and a murderer is in court and is waiting for his sentence, the death penalty must be thought about, but I think that the death penalty is something really antique. The only difference to past centuries is that the methods are not so cruel anymore, but it is still the same principle of "if you kill someone, you are punished by getting killed as well"- today under the coat of a well thought punishment and for the protection of the citizens. But it is still only a modified way of a retaliatory measure.
Differences should be made, looking at the background of the crime and the offender. A woman, for example, who killed her husband after a long period in which she got violated by him, does not deserve the death penalty. She is not a danger for other citizens and so there is no reason for killing her. For her it would be enough if she spent some years in prison. If she got executed, it would only be a retaliatory measure. If someone is mentally ill, he should be imprisoned in a mental home and whether he has to stay there for the rest of his life should depend on his chance for rehabilitation. It should be tried to help those people, not to destroy them. Destroying people is what the state does with convicts who are waiting up to 20 years for their execution. Those people sometimes do incredibly suffer - in the name of justice.
Over all I would say that, if there is the need for capital punishment, it should be only for people like McVeigh, who obviously does not regret his offence and constitutes an insecurity for other people, and for whom there is no chance of rehabilitation.

Holden is afraid of real changes

The boy likes to lie but condemns phoneys

J. D. Salinger´s novel "The Catcher in the Rye" was first published in 1945 and caused a lot of trouble in American and English society - it was condemned, banned, but became a classic in American literature. It is about a review of three days in the life of the main character called Holden Caulfield. Holden is a seventeen-year-old boy that stays in hospital because of his t. b. and tells the reader as a first-person narrator about some things that happened one year ago – at school, where he failed, in New York, his hometown.
The book is written in quite an unusual way, beginning with an uncommon introduction and using a lot of colloquial language. It doesn’t show us the inner side of Holden very obviously - it’s more a discovery of his feelings while you are reading this book. You start analysing situations and his way of reacting.
In my opinion, Holden is a very sensible boy in a way. When he talks with his teacher, who failed him, he tries to take the guilty conscience of this man away He doesn’t want to make the old man sad. But on the other hand, he utters straight out what he thinks – even if he hurts someone. That is why his biggest problem are phoney people, people who don’t say the truth and pretend. But he is lying as well in a very funny way- for instance when he meets this woman in the train and tells her total rubbish about her son and himself. He is an outsider, a kind of fool for the others, but I don’t think that this is a problem for him. In his environment at school, he keeps distance to nearly everyone. It’s not only that the others want this distance- he wants it as well. But when they need his help, whatever it may be, he helps them.
Ackley, a rather disgusting classmate, is in a way like him. They don’t like each other very much, but I think there is something that connects them – their outsider image. That may be the reason why Holden invites him when he goes out on Saturday night, because Ackley usually spends the whole weekend alone in his room.
At first sight, Holden seems to be a very relaxed guy in a way- but there are some things that make or made him mad. In the part where he talks about his younger brother, who died, we get to know a lot about him. After the death, Holden went totally crazy and destroyed his parents’ garage. That shows that he had very warm feelings for his brother and seems to miss him a lot, he admires his intelligence without any envy and he talks only positively about him – about the only person he talks only positively beside Jane Gallagher, a girl that used to live next door to him in New York. He hears about her again because his roommate has a date with her. It’s a very hard situation for him, knowing that the girl he used to play checkers with all the time is now dating this lady-killer. When he talks and think about her, you can really feel the love he has inside. But you can’t really find out if this love is the love of a brother or a-boy-to-girl love. He wants to protect her and when he finds out what his roommate did with her in the car, he goes wild and starts a fight with him, although this guy is about two times as heavy as he. Is it jealousy or just because he feels as her protector? We don’t get to know yet. And in this scene we get to know that Holden is not true to himself: he doesn’t want Jane to know that he got the axe, which shows that he cares more about that than he pretends to do- he seems to be ashamed of it in a way.
I think he is afraid of real changes, because most of the good things he talks about have happened in the past and that’s the reason why he doesn’t go down to meet Jane, because he is afraid that one of the few people he has nice feelings for may have changed into a phoney as well.

Absurd meeting in Pinter´s A Slight Ache

The matchseller is a projection of Flora´s problem

"A Slight Ache" is a short play written by Harold Pinter. It is about a couple, Flora and Edward, whose relationship is not very friendly anymore. For a long time they have had a visitor, an old matchseller standing at their garden`s back gate every day, no matter whether there was sunshine, rain or storm. Because Edward is afraid of this man, Flora one day invites him into their house to show her husband that this old man is harmless and nothing else. But then things start getting very strange. The old man never talks and seems to ignore the things he is told to do. After Edward has a breakdown after his "conversation" with the old man, or better said with silence, Flora enters the study to try her luck in getting on with this man. But immediately she shows a strange and weird behaviour as well. She talks about having been raped in her youth and about remembering the old man to be the rapist. After that she tries to seduce him and finally she talks to him like to a baby.

Harold Pinter

First of all, I think that there is no doubt about the fact that Flora is totally weird and mentally disturbed. That seems to stem from the horrible thing that happened to her in the past. She maybe never talked to anyone about that before or at least still has not got over it at all. The old matchseller makes those feelings come up again and she cannot deal with it. That is why she is not shocked although she conciders him to be the rapist. Her attempt to seduce this old man could have two reasons. First of all, she might want to try to relive her rape again, but this t ime with her in the position of the superior, because her subconsciousness is desperately searching for relief and that makes her do this strange thing, subconsciously hoping for peace of mind, wishing to be the winner, not the loser this time (compare to page 66, line 15: "I lost."). Another explanation for this weird behaviour is more obvious. Her marriage is not working anymore and her husband does not seem to be interested in her anymore - in every way. Her behaviour is a cry for love and for appreciation. But she is taking sex for love and so it seems to be that she is just trying to prove to herself that she is still attractive for a man. But the fact that she uses this old, strange, STINKING man for this proof, seems to indicate that in reality she is more looking for love, for a non-sexual appreciation, although she is not aware of it. I do not reject that the will for a proof of her sexual attractiveness is not there, but it is only a small part of the reason for her behaviour, only what she THINKS she is looking for. Finally, she starts to treat the old man like a baby, wants to buy him little toys and gives him the name Barnabas. This name means "son of consolation" and I think that the author wants to give us a hint for an interpretation of this weird situation.  All of Flora´s most inner feelings, doubts and wishes break through, she uses Barnabas as the personification of one of her wishes: a baby, that she never had. She projects all the inner thoughts and feelings she has on this old man , she uses him to express all the repressed emotions she has inside. Although this behaviour might be not understandable, she is overpowered by her inside and the old man becomes a catalyst for her inner emotions. After she did that, she seems to become "normal" again, and I guess it`s because she finally got relief from all the pain she had inside.

Why can´t you do nothing ?

Mr Brown wants a carefree life in a hospital

"A Separate Peace" by Tom Stoppard is about an old man called Mr Brown, who checks in a private nursing home although he is not ill. When the doctor or the nurses tell him that he has to leave, he regrets their decision and says that he is looking for a place like that - where you just can do nothing - and that a nursing home is the only place where you can do that without getting annoyed by anyone. He does not give any further information about his identity or his past. Only nurse Maggie is able to get something out of him. We get to know that Mr Brown was in the second world war in Europe, that he was imprisoned in that time and that he has been "walking thousands of miles" and since that time has just stayed at different places but never settled down anywhere.
I do not think that Mr. Brown is mentally disturbed in any way. He may show a rather strange behaviour, but in my opinion he went through so many experiences in his life and did so many things, that he is fed up now and just wants to have his peace and do nothing. By painting the walls, he starts to build his own environment, his own little world. He wants to leave all his past behind him, including the people he knows from that past - friends, family...
I guess Mr Brown has enough of the world and the society he got to know and just wants to spend the rest of his life away from that, in his own small world, cared of by people who do not know him and his past. He wants to escape from the society in which he probably never wanted to live or at least does not want to live any longer. The only thing Mr Brown wants is his own separate peace, far away from the world outside.

Dashiell Hammett´s "The Main Death"

Hammett creates a new type of detective

Dashiell Hammett (1894 - 1961)

The person of the detective in this story differs a lot from the traditional ones of the 19th and early 20th century. Whereas the Great Detectives such as A.C. Doyle´s Sherlock Holmes or E.A.Poe´s Auguste Dupin always seem to be very well educated, friendly and a little posh, the one we deal with in "The Main Death" appears to be simply the opposite: He is rude, does not seem to care about education and the way how to treat people nicely and, last but not least, does not seem to have any respect regarding other peoples´ wishes and wills or the persons themselves at all. The way he talks about other people confirms his disrespect, e.g. on page 55, line 1 he remarks: "his ridiculous little face jerked ..." or in line 22: "the little man´s painted face...", because if you respect someone, you talk about him using his name and not descriptions like that.

He seems to be someone who does not give a damm about moral and other similar values. He knows that Mr Gungen is a "dealer" of smuggled rare and antique jewelry, but does not object at all. He just wants to do his job not always employing legal methods, which can be seen by the fact that he does not hand over the two robbers of the money to the police but robs them as well to get back the money of Mr Gungen. When his client tells our detective that he wants him to find out if there had been something going on between his wife Enid and the murdered Mr Main, he refuses insisting that his only job was to find the murderer of Mr Main and get the money back. Later on, when he finds out that there really was an affair between Main and Enid, he does not trade the truth to Mr Gungen, because he does not care a bit about that at all. This coolness is underlined by the use of a lot of slang expressions, e.g. on page 63, line 25/26:"...I decided to chuck the tale-of-woe I had spent my riding built." or uttering incomplete words or sentences, e.g. on page 52, line 23: "Why´d he have the twenty thou in cash?". Another fact that supports the coolness of the sleuth is the way he describes the observed persons: never using one word too many, very short and precise observations are his strong points. But, nevertheless, he appears to be as clever as the other detectives in the stories we read before. Altogether I imagine him being a cool, clever man who does not care a lot about laws and moral values but just about solving the case he is dealing with and the money he earns for it. I think a detective like this is more interesting for a modern reader, because he is not so clean and perfect as the armchair detectives in the earlier stories. That makes the whole story more authentic and realistic, and for me, the Dashiell Hammett story has been the most interesting story of all the stories we have read so far.