6 June 2012
Guess My Name: A Comparison of Lord of the Flies to Sympathy for the Devil The story The Lord of the Flies is a timeless piece of literature written by William Golding. Many who have read this story have been inspired in different ways, one of these groups being The Rolling Stones. In their song Sympathy for the Devil, there are striking similarities between the lyrics and the content of The Lord of the Flies. In one line of Sympathy for the Devil, the lyrics go like this, “I watched with glee, While your kings and queens, Fought for decades, For the gods they made.” This is almost directly taken from the key point in the story that human nature, when faced with fear, is to create a fictional excuse for what is causing,…show more content… The singer is singing as an entity rather than that of a person first meeting the devil. This is evident because this person is talking of being present at events that happened thousands of years ago. The entity, or idea, the person is singing as is human savagery. He is saying that he has been present in all people that have ever done anything of elephantine horribleness and of blatant disregard for human rights. As this entity he says one striking line that really relates to the story and that is “Just as every cop is a criminal, And all the sinners saints,” (Sympathy for the Devil). The reason this is so important is because he is saying that no matter how wonderful you may appear, he- human savagery- exists in everyone, even a group of posh British boys who are escaping a war and just crash landed on an island together. All you need is the proper situation and anyone will become a blood lusting animalistic killer if it means survival. Another lyric that supports this is when the chorus comes around and the lead singer sings “Hope you guessed my name,” (Sympathy for the Devil). The man is almost challenging the devil because he knows that this savagery exists in all of human kind. He is saying that we are all capable of crimes like the ones that are stated in previous verses, and that it is just human nature to be savage animals when we believe we need to be, and that we are all guilty for the horrid crimes
