Dracula 9

Lord Of The Flies

Whilst reading through the play, I came across a quote by Grice where she's talking bout Renfield and refers to him as "Lord of the sodding flies". This got me thinking and I decided to reread the novel, Lord Of The Flies by William Golding.

The main plot of Lord Of The Flies is a group of boys marooned on an island having to set up their own mini-democracy, however the group is soon divided into the hunt and the hunted. Now, the main theme of the book is mankind's conflicting impulses towards civilisation, which brings to mind Artaud's views on this subject. Indeed, the book really supports his ideas, the basic laws of civilisation are soon lost on the boys as they descend into barbaric and basic primal instincts.

One of the first things that starts to tear apart the group is the belief of the boys that there is a "Beast" that exists somewhere on the island. Of course this completely relates to Dracula. I found this so interesting, especially since that is something that tears apart the characters in the play. Those who have that weakness and may let him in and those that don't. 

When one of the boys, Jack, decides to separate from the main group led by Ralph, he decides to set up a new camp at Castle Rock, where the beast resides. This of course matches Dracula's own castle. They recruit new members by holding a fest and performing rituals, painting their faces and giving sacrifices to the beast. This is so connected to the work we've been doing on Artaud and that which we've been planning on using in our performance of Dracula. 

Then, there is a boy who is possibly epileptic who wanders off and finds the head of a pig, a sacrifice for the Beast, however he envisions it being the Beast itself and names it the Lord Of The Flies, due to the flies which are now buzzing around it. The Lord Of The Flies tells the boy that the Beast never existed, that the group created it and that the real Beast is inside them all. This is so eye opening. It makes me see Dracula and the evil so clearly. The idea that Dracula, whilst being a real thing in the play, is simply a physical form of the evil that exists in all humans. It's shown, he is the taboos we try to suppress. Temptation, lust, desire, everything we fear most about ourselves and try to push down and out of our conscious thought. He is all of that. it's incredible.

The fact that Liz Lochhead has included this in the play is fabulous, it's so clever and I feel like it cements everything I've interpreted about the book and the play up until now.