每天五分钟听经典英文故事,读绘本,磨耳朵。一群孩子流落荒岛,从文明走向野蛮,一部关于人性幽暗与纯真消逝的经典寓言。
Today, Duoji is going to tell you the story of Lord of the Flies, by the Nobel Prize winner Golding
A group of children were stranded on a deserted island
At last, there were no grown-ups to boss them around
They didn't have to go to school
They could play all day, and pick one of themselves to be their leader
But later, one of those children had to run for his life
The other children were hunting him down
How did things ever come to this
Well, the story starts with a conch shell
That conch shell was found by twelve-year-old Ralph and a chubby boy in thick glasses
They were wading in the shallow water
A plane crash had left these British boys on the island
They had been flying away from the war
A storm swept the wreckage out to sea, and no one knew where they had landed
The chubby boy had asthma
Earlier, he had quietly asked Ralph not to tell the others his school nickname
But Ralph told them anyway
From then on, everyone called him Piggy
In time, no one even said his real name
It was also Piggy who came up with the idea to blow the conch shell
If they blew it, the children scattered across the island would come together
The children followed the sound and came running
They raised their hands and chose Ralph as their leader
Then he made one rule
At meetings, whoever held the conch shell had the right to speak, and no one could interrupt
Another boy who wanted to be leader was Jack
He used to lead the school choir
After he lost the vote, Ralph put him in charge of hunting, together with the boys who had sung under him
One day, as they explored the island, they found a small pig caught in the vines
Jack raised his knife, but he couldn't bring himself to do it
In the end, he let the pig go
What Ralph cared about most was going home
He asked everyone to build huts and keep a fire burning on the mountain
That way, any passing ship would see the smoke
The boys used Piggy's glasses to focus the sunlight and light the fire
But they got so excited that they forgot to watch it, and the fire spread into the trees
By the time they noticed, a little boy with a birthmark on his face was gone
They never found him again
After that, the boys who had promised to help often ran off to play
Only Ralph and a boy named Simon stayed to build the huts
Jack, though, fell deeper and deeper in love with hunting
He painted his face with mud and charcoal
Then he led his hunters into the forest, and even called away the boy who was supposed to keep the fire going
And just then, a ship appeared on the sea
Ralph raced up to the top of the mountain, but the fire had gone out
When Jack came back carrying the first wild pig he had ever killed, the ship had already sailed away
Jack told them all about the hunt, excited and proud
But Ralph said only one thing, over and over
A ship had passed by just now
Piggy spoke up and blamed Jack too
So Jack hit him
Piggy's glasses fell onto the rocks, and one lens broke
That night, they still ate the meat
Meat could be handed out right away
But keeping the fire might mean waiting day after day and getting nothing
Ralph was still the leader, but the meetings he called were harder and harder to hold
The children were always afraid that a beast was hiding on the island
Simon tried to say that maybe the thing they feared was inside themselves
No one understood him, and he couldn't explain it well
One night, there was a battle in the sky far away
A dead parachutist fell onto the top of the mountain, and his parachute caught on the rocks
When the wind blew, the ropes made the body move
The twins who were keeping watch on the fire saw the dark shape rise and fall
They ran back, terrified, and said they had seen the beast with their own eyes
Later, even Ralph and Jack were frightened away by that shadow in the dim light
The children didn't dare go to the mountain top again
Jack accused Ralph of being a coward, and demanded a new vote for leader
But not one hand went up to support him
Crying, he stormed off and said he would hunt on his own
Little by little, some children slipped away to follow him
This time, the hunters chased down a mother pig and killed her while she was feeding her young
They cut off her head and stuck it on a sharpened stick, as an offering to the beast
Jack took some of his boys to Ralph's camp and stole fire from them
Then he invited the other children to come and eat meat
But Simon, who had stayed behind in the forest, came face to face, all alone, with that pig's head
It was crawling with flies
It was the Lord of the Flies
In a daze, he felt the pig's head was talking to him
It laughed at him for thinking the beast was something he could chase and kill
The beast was in them
The flies buzzed and buzzed, and Simon fainted
When he woke up, he climbed the mountain alone
At last he saw clearly what the so-called beast really was
It was just a dead body, pulled by the ropes of a parachute
He had to hurry and tell the others
They didn't need to be afraid of that thing anymore
Down below, Ralph and Piggy came too, to eat the meat
A storm was coming
Jack made the children dance the hunting dance
They made a circle, stamped their feet, and waved their sticks
They shouted, over and over, to kill the beast
And Ralph and Piggy pushed into the crowd with them
Simon came stumbling out of the dark, trying to tell them about the mountain
But the crowd took him for the beast, and rushed at him all together
Before he could pass on his news, his friends killed him there by the sea
In the night, the rising tide carried his body away
The next day, Ralph said it was murder
He remembered that he had been there too
But Piggy kept saying it was only an accident
It was too dark, and everyone was too scared
He reminded Ralph again and again that they had been standing outside the circle
Jack told his tribe that the beast might come back
Someone was tied up and beaten, and no one could say what he had done wrong
To make fire for cooking meat, Jack led a night raid on the camp and stole Piggy's glasses
Now Piggy could barely see, and Ralph and his friends had lost the only way to light the fire again
Piggy insisted on getting his glasses back
Holding the conch shell, he walked with Ralph and the twins to the rock castle that Jack had taken over
He still believed that whoever held the conch shell had the right to speak
He asked the painted children which was better, following the rules or chasing the kill
Then Roger, up above, pushed down on a lever
A huge rock came rolling down
It struck Piggy and knocked him off the cliff
The conch shell in his hands shattered at the very same moment
The twins were seized, and Ralph was hurt
He could only flee into the forest alone
The next day, they began to hunt Ralph
To drive him out of the bushes where he was hiding, the hunters set the forest on fire
Ralph ran and ran for his life, the fire behind him, his companions all around him, searching
At last, he burst out of the trees and fell down on the beach
When he lifted his head, he saw a naval officer in uniform
The smoke of the burning forest had brought a cruiser to the island
The rescue fire Ralph had kept for so long had not brought help
What finally brought the grown-ups was the fire his own friends had lit to kill him
At first, the officer thought the boys were just playing at war
Then Ralph said that two people were already dead
The painted children with their sharp sticks stopped one by one on the beach
Ralph wept
He wept for the innocence that could never come back
He wept for the darkness he had seen in people's hearts
And he wept for Piggy, the boy he had once laughed at, who had always stood by his side
The other children began to cry too
The officer felt uneasy
He turned away to give them some time
His eyes moved out over the sea, and rested on the neat cruiser far away

