Lord of the Flies by William Golding

First of all, HATED THIS BOOK. The first time I read it last year, anyway. Just a boring, depressing read about schoolboys who go all homicidal and crazy over a shell.
Or at least that's what I thought when I read this last time. But this time we had to read it for English class, and we delved deep into every nook and cranny of symbolism the book had to offer. The colors? War or nature. The conch? Society structure. The boys? Good and evil. See what I mean?
The basic story is a bunch of boys in World War 2 land in a plane crash on a deserted island, no human life to speak of. There are pigs that are huntable on the island, but one of the oldest boys, Ralph, quickly becomes leader and figures out that they need a fire for a signal so they can get rescued. They use a conch shell at assemblies so they can keep it orderly. However, things still get out of hand especially when another boy, Jack, tries to gain control and get more kids to hunt with him. The problem is when all you do is hunt, there's no time to focus on the other aspects of staying alive. It turns into an all-out power struggle between these two boys, and all the other kids are forced to choose sides. Things get WAY out of hand, as in... MURDER!!!
The book is also an allegory for society, or so my English teacher said. It shows how humans, when put in an environment with no social guidance or rules, will revert to primitive, barbaric chaos. And they do, the boys have no problem proving that.
I gotta say I liked this book better the second time around because I got it better, but I still didn't like it much especially because we got sick of taking practically ten minutes to read a page and note everything that could be of value later in the story. ♠♠