Simpsons

The Simpson’s episode viewed today is based loosely on Lord of the Flies, yet did not seem to completely match the book for various reasons. Having not enough time to display the whole story, to having a different audience than the book, the Simpson’s version could not have matched the real book. Millhouse, the geeky boy who is picked on and the scapegoat for the group’s problem, and Lisa, the genius and smarts of the group, combined to form the character of Piggy. Ralph is apparent in Bart, who takes the lead with the conch, and tries to restore and create order within the group. He helps out Millhouse and Lisa, helping the Piggy type character, yet gradually degrades as a character. He goes from a confident leader, to suddenly giving up and joining the rest of the group to try Millhouse for stealing. Nelson plays the role of Jack, who constantly picks on Millhouse, always bullies and blames others for the problems of the group, and eventually leads a savage group after the geek group of Lisa, Bart, and Millhouse, just like the book without the deaths. Not exactly Sam and Eric because they did not follow the lead of the geek group, the twins in the Simpsons did not represent the twins in the book, who followed Ralph’s commands until the very end. Ralph in the Simpsons acted just as an extra who did not have a counterpart in the book.

Storywise, the story seemed to follow the book decently well for the amount of time given, yet unlike the book, there were no deaths and the group joined back together in order to survive. The hunt in the book led to Ralph running into the naval officer, while in the episode, the hunt led to the group joining together as one against the monster, the boar in the cave, to survive by running away and eating together. They do not get rescued officially like in the book, rather the narrator says, “Let’s just say they were saved by Moe.” In general, the episode matched the story of the Lord of the Flies for the given time and audience, yet differed in the violent and deeper nature of the true story.