Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Lord of the Flies and Jurisprudence

I was ruminating about the similarities/differences between the Orestia and William Golding's Lord of the Flies earlier today. The two stories are indeed different, however, I was wondering if they were a central parallel between the two, viz. there is a split between two parties, two different types of law.

The Lord of Flies, if you have not read it, has a dichotomy between two groups: first, there is Ralph and Piggy, two individuals that use "the conch" to make and determine laws (i.e. one can only speak when holding the conch); second, there is Jack and the rest of the boys--they are more "savage" in their law making. All of these characters, which I forgot to mention are boys, are stranded on an island and are deciding what it the best structure of governing.

I am not sure if each group of individuals represent a specific jurisprudence, such as "natural law" or "positivist law," but I do believe there are elements of these jurisprudence in both. For example, one could say, more or less, that "the conch" may represent a form of positivism insofar that whatever an individual says while holding the conch is the rule. This is much like whatever the rule states as written, to a positivist, is the law.

I haven't read this novel in quite some time, so my memory is nebulous at best. However, I think the play between natural law/positivist law certainly extends outside the literary works of simply Aeschylus and his Orestia; that is, you can find these two types of law in other works of media.

1 comment:

  1. I think your comparison with Lord of the Flies and Legal positivism and Natural Law is very interesting.

    Could you tell me more?

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete