Why Lord of the Flies still feels like today

William Golding's Lord of the Flies has had a long life. The novel, published in 1954, follows a group of British schoolboys whose plane crashescrash: A violent collision; a sudden and severe fall in value or failure. — 碰撞；崩溃 on an empty island. With no adults around, the boys try to build their own society, but they quickly fall into violenceviolence: Behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill. — 暴力；暴力行为. Stephen King has called the book one of his biggest influences, and it has inspiredinspire: To fill someone with the urge or ability to do something creative or worthwhile. — 激励；启发 films, a dance show and eveneven: Exactly, just, fully — 正好 a Simpsons parodyparody: A work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony — 滑稽模仿作品；戏仿. Now Jack Thorne, who wrote the megahit Netflix series Adolescence, has adaptedadapt: To adjust or modify oneself or something to suit new conditions. — 适应；改编 it for television again. He says the story still speaks to today's world, where people often find it easier to attack each other than to help.

Golding draws each boy with care, which is why the island has long been seen as a microcosmmicrocosm: A smaller system which is seen as representative of a larger one — 缩影；小宇宙 of societymicrocosm of society: a small group or system that represents the larger world — 社会的缩影. Piggy is the clever boy with glasses who is bulliedbully: To intimidate (someone) as a bully — 欺凌 by the others. Ralph is the natural leader who tries to keep order. Jack, his rivalrival: A person or thing competing with another for the same objective or superiority. — 对手；竞争者, wants power and pulls the rest of the group into chaoschaos: Complete disorder and confusion; a state in which normal order has collapsed. — 混乱；混沌；无序状态 and cruelty. Simon is the quiet, thoughtfulthoughtful: Demonstrating thought or careful consideration — 深思的；考虑周到的 one, almost a Christ figureChrist figure: a character in a story whose role mirrors Jesus Christ — innocent, suffering, sacrificed — 基督式人物（殉道形象）, who senses that the real evil on the island comes from inside the boys themselves. Generations of students have read the book in school, although not all of them enjoyed being made to read it.

Tim Kendall, a professor at the University of Exeter who has editededit: To prepare written material for publication by correcting and revising it. — 编辑；修改 a collection of Golding's letters, says the novel began as something even more specific. In an early version, the boys were being moved to safety from a third world war. A deleteddelete: To remove written or electronic data. — 删除；清除 passagepassage: A section of text; a narrow way through or along something; the act of moving through. — 段落；通道；经过 even described a mushroom cloudmushroom cloud: the cloud shape made by a nuclear explosion — 蘑菇云 rising behind their plane. That image, Kendall argues, makes very clear what Golding was doing: the boys on the island were repeating in miniatureminiature: Smaller than normal — 微型的 what the adults were doing on a global scalescale: The relative size or extent of something; a system of marks for measuring. — 规模；比例；刻度. In the published book, only one phrase, the Redsthe Reds: Cold War-era slang for the Soviets / communists — “红色分子”（冷战时期对苏联人/共产党人的俗称）, points to the Cold WarCold War: the long political standoff between the US-led West and the Soviet Union, roughly 1947 to 1991 — 冷战 that shaped the writing. By cutting the rest, Golding made the novel feel timelesstimeless: Not affected by time; ageless — 不受时间影响的；经久不变的 rather than tied to the 1950s.

Each generation finds a different meaning in the story. Judy Carver, Golding's daughter, says early readers focused on religion and saw Simon as a sacrificialsacrificial: Used as a sacrifice — 被用作牺牲的；自我牺牲的 figure. Later, environmental readings became more important, promptedprompt: To cause or encourage someone to do something; to give rise to an action. — 促使；引发 by the boys setting fire to the island. Today, she suggests, the rise of leaders with absolute power makes Jack the obvious mirror, and rules about war and fair trialstrial: Appearance at judicial court in order to be examined — 出庭接受审讯 feel in danger of breaking down. Carver also notes that it would be wrong to say her father wrote the book about masculinitymasculinity: The degree or property of being masculine or manly; manliness — 男子气概；阳刚之气, although a careful reader can find that idea in it. Her father came to believe that a good book belongs to its readers, and that each generation has the right to find its own meaning.

Thorne's adaptationadaptation: The process of adjusting to new conditions, or a version of a work modified for a different medium — 适应；改编；改编作品 looks for ideas in the book that classroom readings often miss. As a child, he simply hated Jack. Reading the novel again as an adult, he found a portrait that was much gentler than he remembered. Jack's cruelty, Thorne argues, is not the work of an evil heart but the result of small, frightened decisions made to keep his authority. The phrase toxic masculinitytoxic masculinity: harmful traditional male behaviours such as dominance, aggression, or emotional suppression — 有毒的男性气质, he adds, has become so common that for boys trying to work out who they should be, it feels almost frightening. His version of the story shows boys whose fathers are distantdistant: Far away in space or time; not closely related; reserved or unfriendly. — 遥远的；疏远的 or absentabsent: Not present in a place or not existing in something. — 缺席的；不存在的, but it does not blame those fathers in a simple way. Thorne worries that the book's title is now used too easily, summonedsummon: To ask someone to come; to send for — 传唤 every time someone announces another Lord of the Flies momentLord of the Flies moment: a moment when society or a group seems to break down into chaos and cruelty — “蝇王时刻”——社会/群体崩坏的瞬间. Golding's novel, he believes, deservesdeserve: To be worthy of a particular reward, treatment, or outcome. — 值得；应得 more careful attention, because what it caught about ordinary, frightened boys is still painfully true.