A Critical Analysis On The Morality
Of Literature in Scorpio Nights 2 By Erik Matti
The film Scorpio Nights 2 by Erik Matti produced in
1999 focuses on a vivid portrayal of forbidden love between a teacher and a
student, Andrew and Valerie (by Albert Martinez and Joyce Jimenez
respectively.) It also presents several issues in the society which normally
observed in a university and dormitories such as immorality or pre-marital sex,
homosexuality, drugs, vices, and other form of addiction. The film was set in the two venues. First is
in the tenements of Manila intended for rent by students, families, and other
occupants. This is where the two main characters stayed. The other one is in
the university where the two main characters are involved.
Moreover, it tackles about how he
maintains it in the midst of temptation and the awaiting consequences of being
fallen into temptation and sin. Meanwhile, the director of the movie Erik
Matti, was known for his erotic films which includes several issues whether in
society, or in man’s life. For this film he had used the life of the common
people specifically the life of people in and out of the university. His main
characters, teacher and student were a clear representation of high moral
individuals who both failed due to their response to fornication. Moreover,
other characters represents the negligence of morality either temporary or
permanently which happens to be realistic.
Furthermore, the search for morality
in this film was greatly focused. Morality was defined as the accepted moral standards or the standards of conduct that are generally accepted as
right or proper. In the film, each of the characters had the right to choose
between good and evil specifically between sexual desires and ethics. But what
is observed greatly is the immersion of the characters in sin. Andrew, as one
of the main characters was one’s a meticulous, well-organized man but was
debauched by his fellow teacher named Dana and little by little he was
transformed into a messy guy. He had neglected every ethics he learned and
Cicero’s reminder of morality because of this. It became worse when he
developed this sexual desire with Valerie, a student of a university where he teaches.
This succession of events had led him to become a nymphomaniac at the end of
the movie. It was then portrayed that with his much desperation, he disguised
as a woman in order to be near with Valerie, forcing her to make love with him.
Furthermore, this choice in which he made has several consequences and proved
to be his downfall. In the end, Andrew was dumped like garbage literally and figuratively
by the society.
Matti
had also used symbolism in the film. This was presented by Cicero, a genius boy
which symbolizes innocence in a world of chaos with high morals. He had served
as a reminder to Andrew and other characters in the story but was affected by
several factors which also ruined his life. The character was a proof that
great minds are disturbed by pressures around. He may be look as a grown up but
still he was a kid and still have some things to discover. His death by
committing a suicide was a form of escape from the unsympathetic world he lived
in. however, the title of the film points out to Val’s zodiac sign Scorpio,
which linked to her immoral activity with Andrew occurring mostly by night.
Also like a Scorpio or scorpion the attitudes of each characters was affected
by a venomous sting of immorality and pleasure which poisoned their minds and
turned them into wild individuals.
In general, the film was not made
to encourage the immorality but to present why or how sin is developed and what
are the latter consequences behind this choice. The film was not purely erotic
but served as a warning to viewers on how a man drives himself to his
destruction through his addiction and lack of self-control. Neither it do not
talk about the baring of the flesh nor
talking issues about sex, sexual satisfaction, or consuming it but realizations
which could change every man’s life in general.
For instance, Valerie, being engaged with Andrew in a daring romance had
given into her sexual cravings but realized that morality must still reign.
Thus, she avoided to get near with Andrew and set aside all thoughts of immorality.
As a whole, the film was looked
as a movie bound with morality. The purpose of the film is to give warn and
present how dark this immorality and how it dehumanizes man’s life. This is
based on Father Gardiner’s criteria of measuring morality in literature. He
pointed out some factors in order to validate a sin in a literary work. One of
these is that, sin must be recognized in a literary piece. It must not become a
temptation to a normally discriminating reader. Lastly, a single moral flaw or
sin must not affect the whole film or story. This factor in relation to the
movie was real as they fell and received consequences for their actions.
Here's a Video:
A LITERARY CRITICISM OF
THE NOVEL “LORD OF THE FLIES” BY
WILLIAM GOLDING USING PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH AND NATURALISM AS TREND
I.
INTRODUCTION
Literature,
through literary criticism allows an individual to study, evaluate and analyze
literary works. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical
discussion of its methods and goals.
This criticism can be made by choosing from different pairs of approaches and
trends. Among these approaches is the Psychological approach which refers to
the inner drives or neurosis of the author and the characters used in a
literary piece.
On the other
hand, Naturalism as a trend in literature was a literary movement that began in
the late nineteenth century (1865-1900) in film, art, literature and theater
that portrays common values of an ordinary individual. It is a trend in referred
to as an extensive realism. This trend originated as a French movement, where
the naturalistic writers were influenced by the theory of evolution of Charles
Darwin and the ideas of Hippolyte Taine, a philosopher. Naturalistic writers
wrote stories that adopted the perspective that a person's character is
determined by one's lineage and environment. The term 'naturalism' was coined
by Emile Zola, an influential French writer. It was a literary movement that
suggested the involvement of environment, heredity and social conditions in
shaping the human character.
Several
writers had used these approaches and trend on their writing. One of the prominent
authors, William Golding had paired this in his novel The Lord of Flies. His famous work was published in 1954, dealt
with the issues of savagery and survival of man under the changes of
environment. This novel presents naturalism and psychological issues. Golding is an English writer who was
awarded
by both prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983 and
the coveted Booker Prize in 1980.
From the discussion above, this paper will
present a critical analysis on the characters of mentioned novel using
psychological approach and naturalism as trend.
II.
BODY
BIOGRAPHY
OF WILLIAM GOLDING
Sir
William Gerald Golding (19 September 1911 – 19 June 1993) was a British
novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize
for Literature laureate, best known
for his novel Lord of the Flies. He was also awarded the Booker Prize
for literature in 1980 for his novel Rites of
Passage, the first book of the
trilogy To the
Ends of the Earth.
In 2008, The Times
ranked Golding third on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Golding was born in his grandmother's house, 47 Mountwise, St. Columb Minor, Newquay, Cornwall and he spent many childhood holidays there.
He grew up at his family home in Marlborough,
Wiltshire, where his father (Alec Golding) was a science master at Marlborough Grammar
School (1905 to
retirement). Alec Golding was a socialist with a strong commitment to
scientific rationalism, and the young Golding and his elder brother Joseph
attended the school where his father taught. His mother, Mildred, kept house at
29, The Green, Marlborough, and supported the moderate campaigners for female
suffrage. In 1930 Golding went to Oxford University as an undergraduate at Brasenose College, where he read Natural Sciences for two years before transferring to English Literature.
Golding took his B.A. (Hons) Second Class in the summer of
1934, and later that year his first book, Poems, was published in London by Macmillan & Co, through the help of his Oxford
friend, the anthroposophist Adam Bittleston.
Golding married Ann Brookfield on 30 September 1939 and they
had two children, Judy and David.
William Golding joined the Royal Navy in 1940. During World War II,
Golding fought in the Royal Navy and was briefly involved in the
pursuit and sinking of Germany's mightiest battleship, the Bismarck. He also participated in the
invasion of Normandy
on D-Day,
commanding a landing ship that fired salvoes of rockets onto
the beaches, and then in a naval action at Walcheren
in which 23 out of 24 assault craft were sunk. At the war's end, he returned to
teaching and writing.
In 1985, Golding and his wife moved to Tullimaar House at Perranarworthal, near Truro,
Cornwall, where he died of heart failure, eight years later, on 19 June 1993.
He was buried in the village churchyard at Bowerchalke,
South Wiltshire (near the Hampshire and Dorset county boundaries). He left the
draft of a novel, The Double Tongue, set in ancient
Delphi, which was
published posthumously. He is survived by his son, David, who still lives at Tullimaar House to the present day.
In September 1953, Golding sent a manuscript to Faber & Faber of London. Initially rejected by a reader there, the book
was championed by Charles Monteith, then a new editor at the firm. He asked for
various cuts in the text and the novel was published in September 1954 as Lord of the Flies. It was shortly followed by other
novels, including The Inheritors, Pincher Martin and Free Fall.
Publishing success made it possible for Golding to resign
his teaching post at Bishop Wordsworth's
School in 1961, and
he spent that academic year in the United States
as writer-in-residence at Hollins College, near Roanoke, Virginia. Having moved in 1958 from Salisbury
to nearby Bowerchalke, he met his fellow villager and
walking companion James Lovelock. The two discussed Lovelock's hypothesis
that the living matter of the planet Earth functions like a single organism,
and Golding suggested naming this hypothesis after Gaia, the goddess of the earth in Greek
mythology.
In 1970, Golding was a candidate for the Chancellorship of the University
of Kent at Canterbury,
but lost to the politician and leader of the Liberal Party Jo Grimond.
Golding won the James Tait Black
Memorial Prize in
1979, the Booker Prize in 1980, and in 1983 he was awarded
the Nobel Prize for
Literature. He was
knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.
SUMMARY
The Lord of Flies
Britain is shot down over a deserted tropical island. Two of
the boys, Ralph and Piggy, discover a conch shell on the beach, and Piggy
realizes it could be used as a horn to summon the other boys. Once assembled,
the boys set about electing a leader and devising a way to be rescued. They
choose Ralph as their leader, where he appoints another boy, Jack, to be in
charge of the boys who will hunt food for the entire group.
Then Ralph, Jack, and another boy, Simon, set off on an
expedition to explore the island. Upon their return, Ralph declares that they
must light a signal fire to attract the attention of passing ships. The boys
succeed in igniting some dead woods by focusing sunlight through the lenses of
Piggy’s eyeglasses. However, the boys pay more attention to playing than to
monitoring the fire, and the flames quickly engulf the forest. A large swath of
dead wood burns out of control, and one of the youngest boys with a mark on his
face, disappears and was presumably burned to death.
During their first days in the island, the boys enjoy their
life without grown-ups and spend much of their time splashing in the water and
playing games. Ralph, however, complains that they should be maintaining the
signal fire and building huts for shelter. The hunters fail in their attempt to
catch a wild pig, but their leader, Jack, becomes increasingly preoccupied with
the act of hunting as days progresses.
When a ship passes by on the horizon one day, Ralph and
Piggy noticed to that the signal fire—which had been the hunters’
responsibility to maintain—has burned out. Furious, Ralph approaches Jack, but
the hunter has just returned with his first kill of a wild pig. All the hunters
celebrated their victory and seem gripped with a strange frenzy while reenacting
the chase in a kind of wild dance. They almost killed one of the boys as they
reenacted it around the bonfire. It also happened that Piggy criticizes Jack,
who hits Piggy across the face. Ralph blows the conch shell and reprimands the
boys in a speech to restore order. Also at the meeting, it quickly becomes
clear that some of the boys have started to become afraid. The littlest boys,
known as “littluns,” have been troubled by nightmares from the beginning, and
more and more boys now believe that there is some sort of beast or monster
lurking on the island. The older boys try to convince the others at the meeting
to think rationally, asking where such a monster could possibly hide during the
daytime. One of the littluns suggests that it hides in the sea—a proposition
that terrifies the entire group.
Not long after the meeting, some military planes engage in a
battle high above the island. The boys, asleep below, do not notice the
flashing lights and explosions in the clouds. A parachutist drifts to earth on
the signal-fire mountain, dead. Sam and Eric, the twins responsible for
watching the fire at night, are asleep and do not see the parachutist land.
When the twins wake up, they see the enormous silhouette of his parachute and
hear the strange flapping noises it makes. Thinking the island beast is at hand;
they rush back to the camp in terror and report that the beast has attacked
them.
Immediately, the boys organize a hunting expedition to
search for the monster. Jack and Ralph, who are increasingly at odds, travel up
the mountain. They see the silhouette of the parachute from a distance and
think that it looks like a huge, deformed ape and totally believed that the
beast really exists. The group holds a meeting at which Jack and Ralph tell the
others what they saw. Jack says that Ralph is a coward and that he should be
removed from office, but the other boys refuse to vote Ralph out of power. Jack
angrily runs away down the beach, calling all the hunters to join him. Ralph rallies
the remaining boys to build a new signal fire, this time on the beach rather
than on the mountain. They obey, but before they have finished the task, most
of them have slipped away to join Jack.
Jack declares himself the leader of the new tribe of hunters
and organizes a hunt and a violent, ritual slaughter of a sow to solemnize the
occasion. The hunters then decapitate the sow and place its head on a sharpened
stake in the jungle as an offering to the beast. Later, encountering the
bloody, fly-covered head, Simon has a terrible vision, during which it seems to
him that the head is speaking. The voice, which he imagines as belonging to the
Lord of the Flies, says that Simon will never escape him, for he exists within
all men. Simon faints. When he wakes up, he goes to the mountain, where he sees
the dead parachutist. Understanding then that the beast does not exist
externally but rather within each individual boy, Simon travels to the beach to
tell the others what he has seen. But the others are out of themselves—even
Ralph and Piggy have joined Jack’s feast—and when they see Simon’s shadowy
figure emerge from the jungle, they fall upon him and kill him with their bare
hands and teeth.
The following morning, Ralph and Piggy discuss what they
have done. Jack’s hunters attack them and their few followers and steal Piggy’s
glasses in the process. Ralph’s group travels to Jack’s stronghold in an
attempt to make Jack see reason, but Jack orders Sam and Eric tied up and
fights with Ralph. In the ensuing battle, one boy, Roger, rolls a boulder down
the mountain, killing Piggy and shattering the conch shell. Ralph was then left
alone and managed to escape spears from Jack’s tribe.
Ralph hides for the rest of the night and the following day,
while the others hunt him like an animal. On the other hand, Jack had ordered
the other boys to ignite the forest in order to smoke Ralph out of his hiding
place. Ralph stays in the forest, where he discovers and destroys the sow’s
head, but eventually, he is forced out onto the beach, where he knows the other
boys will soon arrive to kill him. Ralph collapses in exhaustion, but when he
looks up, he sees a British naval officer standing over him. The officer’s ship
noticed the fire raging in the jungle. The other boys reach the beach and stop
in their tracks at the sight of the officer. Amazed at the spectacle of this
group of bloodthirsty, savage children, the officer asks Ralph to explain.
Ralph is overwhelmed by the knowledge that he is safe but, thinking about what
has happened on the island, he begins to weep. The other boys begin to sob as
well. The officer turns his back so that the boys may regain their composure.
ANALYSIS USING PSYCHOLOGICAL
APPROACH
William
Golding’s novel dealt mainly with the neurosis and loss of innocence by a group
of boys crashed in a tropical island. Under these circumstances, the evolution
of human mind from an innocent child up to maturity was greatly observed. Yet
several factors such as the environment had pushed this growth to barbarism.
Using the
psychological approach, one can understand clearly what goes into the mind of
the characters in the novel. The major focus would be on the four main
characters, Ralph, Jack, Piggy, and Simon. Other minor characters are Roger,
Percival, Henry, Maurice and the littluns or the young ones which would be
scrutinized in later discussions.
Golding’s treatment of the novel has been called
anti-science since he equated scientific and technological progress with
dehumanization and traced the shortcomings of modern society to the inherent
negativity off human nature. In short, this novel refers to the ethical nature
of man as he responds to his environment. This clearly explains that man can be
bad because of his nature or is already bad by nature depending on how he responds
in order to survive. In the case of the boys in the novel, they turn out as
savages having no adult supervision and properly imposed rules. The author’s
psychological insights are reflected in the novel by concise depiction of
events or scenes or savage perverted behavior and degrading moral standards. In
his speech, Golding stated personally that the Lord of Flies is a story about
the darkness in the heart of man. (Fable speech at Univ. of Harvard))
Looking back into
the novel, these boys had learned to put up an organized civilization of their
own—had elected a leader and made every system from hunting of food to shelter
and putting up the fire for signal or for rescue, due to the absence of adults.
Using the psychoanalysis, this order of events from organization to devastation
of human life and his society lies on the mind set of every character will be
scrutinized.
Sigmund Freud, one of the proponents
of psychoanalysis, has a theory concerning the three division of human mind.
This is also known as the three psychic zones which classifies the nature of
man according to his consistent behavior. These three psychic zones or
divisions of mind are the id, ego and superego. These classifications can be
paired individually with the major characters in the novel.
First
of the four is Ralph. Ralph was described as one of the biguns, a term used for
big boys in the group. He was the novel’s protagonist, described as the
twelve-year-old English boy who is elected as the chief. He represents the
human’s civilizing instinct and activates more of his ego than any other in the
island. Such statement implies that he was one who has the control over things,
planning and conforms to reality and morality.
This was proven when he led the group to put up
a civilization on the island. With the conch (a symbol of power or superiority
among the boys) in his hand, he made rules and systems for the boys to follow. However, being an ego allows him to weigh or
mediate on the results of each plan. He often made consultations for Piggy
whose intelligence was stunning. But it was disturbed due to these mediating
ideas of considering the faults and opinions of others. Thus, his rules were
broken due to its loose implementation. He was overpowered by Jack’s superego
on the latter part of the novel.
In order to trace the
character of jack, citations are provided below.
On being a chief, he put up orders on their
new home, an island.
(p.38 chapter 1)
“Ralph waved the conch.
‘Shut up! Wait! Listen!’
He went in in the
silence, borne in his triumph.
There’s
another thing. We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island
they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on tip of the mountain. We must
make a fire.”
Chapter
1, p. 42
‘We’ve
got to have special people for looking after the fire. Any day there may be a
ship out there---he wave his arm at the taut wire of the horizon---and if we
have a signal going they’ll come and take us off. And another thing. We ought
to have more rules. Where the conch is, that’s a meeting. The same up here as
down there.’
“Ralph
moved impatiently. The trouble was, if you were a chief, you have to think, you
had to be wise…this made you think; because thought was a valuable thing that
got results…
Only,
decided Ralph as he faced the chief’s seat, I can’t think. Not like Piggy.”p.78
Look
at us! How many are we? And yet we can’t keep a fire going to make smoke? Don’t
you understand? Can’t you see we ought to—ought to die before we let the fire
out?’ p.81
Piggy involved in Ralph decision making—Chapter
5, p.92
‘Blow the conch, Ralph.’
‘There’s
the fire. Can’t they see?’
‘You
got to be tough now. Make ‘em do what you want.’
Ralph
answered in the cautious voice of one who rehearses the theorem.
‘if
I blow the conch, and they don’t come back; then we’ve had it. We shan’t keep
the fire going. We’ll be like animals. We’ll never be rescued.’
Ralph
consulting Piggy of the truth about ghosts.---Chapter 5, p.93
‘The
trouble is: Are there ghosts, Piggy? Or beasts?
Course there aren’t.’
‘Why not?’
“’ Cos things wouldn’t
make sense. Houses an’ streets an’—TV—they wouldn’t work.”
…..“But s’pose they
don’t make sense? Not here, on this island? Supposing things are watching us
and waiting?’
“Ralph shuddered
violently and moved closer to Piggy, so that they bumped frighteningly.”
‘You stop talking like
that! We got enough trouble,
Ralph, an I’ve had as
much as I can stand. If there’s ghosts--‘
I ought to give up being
a chief. Hear ‘em
“Oh Lord! Oh no!
Piggy gripped Ralph’s
arm.
‘If Jack was chief, he’d
have all hunting and no fire.
‘We’d be here till we died.’
On Chapter 7, page 114-115 he give in
to savagely desires when he took part on the reenactment of the catching of the
sow together with Jack’s hunters.
“Ralph,
carried away by a sudden thick excitement, grabbed Eric’s spear and jabbed at
Robert with it.”
“Ralph too was fighting
to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh. The desire to
squeeze and hurt was over-mastering.”
Another character who
follows his superego was Simon, one of the biguns who loves nature. Simon
represents natural human goodness. He is a small skinny boy, with chin pointed
and has bright eyes. He is loner and always goes for long walks. He was the one
who talked to Lord of Flies and considered having Christ-like character in the
novel. In psychology, superego refers to the part of the mind that acts as a
conscience to the ego. It develops the moral standards and rules through
contact with parents and society. In relation to Simon’s behavior, he was
always conscious and kind to the littluns and to everyone. He always helps on
every work for civilization of the island and sensitive towards his colleagues
as he is to the nature. However, his kindness was ruined when he was brutally
killed by frenzied boys mistakenly identified as the beast. He failed to
deliver the news about the truth. Some critics also look up Simon’s personality
as that of Christ. They linked his kindness to littluns being the children or
people and his sacrifice for truth. However, he was defeated by devil, the Lord
of Flies. Simon for the whole duration of the novel was so conscious due to his
aloof nature.
Below are citations to prove his aloof and
conscientious nature.
On being Aloof and nature-lover:
“He
looked closely as Jack had done at the
close ways behind him and glanced swiftly round to confirm that he was utterly
alone. When he was securwe in the middle he was in a little cabin svreened off
from the open space by a few leaves. He squatted down, parted from the leaves
and looked out into the clearing. Nothing moved but a pair of gaudy butterflies
that danced round each other in the hot air. Holding his breath he cocked a
critical ear at the sounds of the island.” (Chapter 3, p. 57)
By
personal speech Simon explained to Jack why he goes alone to the dark.
‘I wanted to go to ---a place—a place
I know
‘What place?’
‘Just a place I know. A place in the
jungle.’
(Chapter 5 p. 85)
He is sensitive towards the need and feelings
of others.
“He walked with an
accustomed tread through the acres of fruit trees, where the least energetic
could find an easy if unsatisfying meal. Flower and fruit grew together on the
same tree and everywhere has the scent of ripeness and the booming of a million
bees at pasture. Here the littluns who had run after him caught up with him.
Then, amid the roar of bees in the afternoon sunlight, Simon found for them the
fruit they could not reach, pulled of the choicest from up in the foliage, and
passed them back down to the endless, outstretched hands.” (Chapter 3, p. 57)
He
was known to have a disease called epilepsy. Below are proof that he had
seizures in the island:
“Simon was
speaking almost in his ear. Ralph found that he had a rock painfully gripped in
both hands, found his body arched, the muscles of his neck stiffs, his mouth
strained open.” Chapter 7, p.111
He was epileptic at the time he had spoken
with the Lord of Flies on chapter 8, p. 143
Simon’s head was tilted slightly up.
His eyes could not break away and the Lord of Flies hung in space before him.
Simon’s mouth labored, brought forth
audible words.
‘Pig’s head on a stick.’
‘Fancy thinking the Beast was
something you could hunt and kill!’ said the head. For a moment or two the
forest and all the other dimly appreciated places echoed with the parody of
laughter. ‘You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the
reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?
The laughter shivered again.
‘Come now,’ said the lord of Flies.
‘Get back to others and we’ll forget the whole thing.’
Simon’s head wobbled. His eyes were
half closed as though he were imitating the obscene thing on the stick. He knew
that one of his times was coming on. The lord of the Flies was expanding like a
balloon.
This is ridiculous. You know perfectly
well you’ll only meet me down there—so don’t try to escape!
Simon’s body arched and stiff. The Lord
of Flies spoke in the voice of a schoolmaster.
‘This has gone quite far enough. My
poor misguided child, do you think you know better than I do?
There was a pause.
“I’m warning you. I’m going to get
angry. D’you see? You’re not wanted. Understand? We are going to have fun on
this island. Understand? We are going to have dun on this island! So don’t try
it on, my poor misguided boy,or else---‘
Simon found he was looking into a vast
mouth. There was blackness within, a blackness that spread.
‘--- Or else,’ said the Lord of Flies,
‘we shall do you? See? Jack and Roger and Maurice and Robert and Bill and Piggy and Ralph. Do you. See?’
Simon was inside the
mouth. He fell down and lost consciousness.
The abovementioned citation also foreshadows
Simon’s death as