Monday, September 24, 2007
No Girls Allowed?
Why does Golding decide to include only boys on the island? Why does he leave girls out of such an important allegory? What does it say about Golding as a writer and thinker that he leaves females completely out of a book about human nature? Does his argument apply only to boys and men, or do women also have the same negative characteristics as part of their nature?
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29 comments:
If there were only girls on the island I think the out come of the book would be much different. Girls seem to be more sensitive and less likely to become 'savages'. I also think they would have their priorites in order so rescue would be a bigger deal to everyone on the island.
-sleepingbeauty<3
hey!
I think that it does not leave out women in human nature. I think it is human nature by men to forget women and their role in society. Boys will not forget women at a certain age, but for how old these boys are in the book they dont really care for women yet. This is also at a time when women didnt really have a big role in society.
~Lil' Dork
If there were only girls on the island I think the out come of the book would be much different. Girls seem to be more sensitive and less likely to become 'savages'. I also think they would have their priorites in order so rescue would be a bigger deal to everyone on the island.
-sleepingbeauty<3
Lil' Dork,
I agree completely with what you said.
You made the point to say that women didn't really have a big role in society at this time and you're right. I don't think much would change if there were women and men on the island just because the boys aren't really interested in girls yet.
-ForgetRegret
I dont think that the book would be very iteresting with only girls. I think golding wrote the story to make it as interesting as possible and with only girls they probably wouldn't be hunting each other.
Pistolepete
Maybe Golding put only boys on the island because he thought he could depict all of the points he wanted to get across, and he can relate better to boys than girls, since he's a guy.
Pochahontas
I think Golding didn't care if it was girls or boys on the island, as long as everyone was the same. To make his argument that human nature is to blame for everything that's wrong in society, he probably wanted the children's basic upbringing to be the same. Girls have different childhoods than boys, especially in the time LOTF was written, so if there were boys and girls, we could have argued that nurture does play a role.
-coolblogname
I believe that Golding left girls out of the story for a reason. In making an allegory he used a lot of religious symbols. Men are the leaders in todays society (for the most part) and Golding really wanted to portray what happens in having the mean be the leaders.
-tickletight
I agree with pochahontas. I don't think Golding has anything against girls (although I suppose we'll never really know). Authors tend to write better about things they are familiar with. He probably also wanted to just get to the point and avoid any unneccesary guy/girl relationships.
-YourMom
I think it shows the era that Golding grew up in. I mean, WWII was a time where woman were just starting to be able to have serious jobs and be able to work outside the home. So the society that he lived in, was one where men were the only people of power in societies. So it makes sense, Golding only using boys to symbloize the different parts of society.
Enmadre
Again, boys and girls are completely different. They have way different aspects on how they react to certain situations. I don't really think that Golding wrote the book this way for any specific reasons, just because it would have a good moral to the book. I think that his argument focused mainly on the male species but i think in ways it could very well have a lot to do with woman also.
-PrincessCinderella<3
I think that he left them out because he wanted to show what a imperfect world would probably be like. And that he wanted to show that boys would react alot diffrent then girls in this enviornment.
Saying that women didn't have a role in society at this point is completely false. During this time more and more women were becoming educated and advancing in areas that were usually dominated by males.
I think the lack of female involvement on the island shows that Golding doesn't think very highly of the female gender. Everything would've been different had there been girls on the island. The younger children would've been cared for and the older children wouldn't have become what they became. More order would have been present along with more maturity. I'm not saying this only because I am female, but because it has been proven that females mature at an earlier age than males.
Women can have the same negative characteristics as men. As we can plainly see with high school girls, women can be pretty cruel, sometimes more so than men.
Golding is a sexist in my opinion.
-Serendipitous
I think he did that on purpose because he knew that if a bunch of boys crashed on a island, that there would be a lot of conflict between them and their differences. He knew that there would be fighting physically instead of verbally, and he knew that both boys and girls need to be in a society together in order to work things out.
smileyface16
I agree with Lil' Dork, that this novel is not intended to leave women out of human nature; and that guys may forget women and their role in society. I think that Golding was tying to show how human nature comes through so much when people are in a hard situation and it was the most effective to show this with all guys stuck together.
Belle
I don't think that Golding was a sexist, I think that is going to the extremes. I believe it was just the society he gerw up in. I don't think he could have possibly understood all the political implications that would be associated with his writing in today's society. I mean, he was just going off what he knew.
I don't think that Golding was a sexist, I think that is going to the extremes. I believe it was just the society he gerw up in. I don't think he could have possibly understood all the political implications that would be associated with his writing in today's society. I mean, he was just going off what he knew.
Enmadre
I that Golding wanted to show the nature of little 12 year old boys. That without control they take there games to far. Without girls being on the island the had no one to keep them in line
-Snow White
I'm sure women have the same characteristics as men. So why did he only include boys? Was he sexist? I think that it just made the book simpler and easier for him to get his point across.
-Smiles:)
Serendipitous,
Wow, I think thats taking it a little far to say that Golding is sexist. Just because he uses boys on the island and doesn't involve girls doesn't mean that he's sexist. Take a look at our country, who is our leader? A male, i don't think he was wrong in using boys rather than girls.
-tickletight
Smileyface16,
Great point!
I never thought about him using the 'girls and boys need to be together for society to work'. But now that I look back, he could have been using that as another symbol on what is needed to survive in this world.
-ForgetRegret
Serendipitous,
Ok, so i really don't think that just because Golding wrote a book without girls in it doesn't mean he is sexist in any way. Its a book, its ok. It would be completely different if he said something sexist in the book or showed some kind of symbolism of not liking the female race, but he didn't so...
_PrincessCinderella<3
Cinderella and ticklefight:
The mere fact that Golding didn't include females is evidence that he is sexist. You can be sexist and not outwardly say or do something to show it. What about employers who choose not to hire females simply because of their gender? They don't simply say "Uh, hey we don't like chicks so we're not hiring you."
So yes, it is plenty likely that Golding is sexist even if he doesn't say it in the text of the book.
-Serendipitous
Serendipitous---
Maybe in today's society his writing could be a sign of being a sexist, but woman were lesser back then. I mean, during WWII was the first time woman really got into the working world, and only because men were gone and not able to do everything.
Enmadre
I don't think Golding was sexist, I just think that, for his purposes, he wanted an island of all boys. Most people are agreeing that an island full of girls would have made a very different story, and Golding didn't want that.
-coolblogname
i think he intenionally left out girls to show that with men and woman on the island it would have been greatly different proboly more ore there
It's not that that Golding doesn't see women as an important part of society, it's just that he was a teacher at a boys school before he wrote Lord of the Flies, and so has a greater understanding of the true nature of young boys. I think that the story would have been slightly different, but that the descent into savagery is likely - possibly inevitable - regardless of gender
~LilyPotterGirl
It's not that that Golding doesn't see women as an important part of society, it's just that he was a teacher at a boys school before he wrote Lord of the Flies, and so has a greater understanding of the true nature of young boys. I think that the story would have been slightly different, but that the descent into savagery is likely - possibly inevitable - regardless of gender
~LilyPotterGirl
Who cares!? Its a book written 50 years ago. He used a subject he knew about. Why does the sex of the kids have to matter. Its a fictional book symbolizing humanity. Gender doesn't matter. Write a fan fiction where all the characters are gender swapped if its such a big deal.
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