Many novels are so successful that producers can't wait to adapt the story into a film. The majority of times, however, the original novel is much stronger than the movie because it is able to capture the emotions of each character, the symbolism, and meaningful events. Due to the novel's flexibility, readers are able to extend the use of their imagination. Similarly, this was the case with William Golding's masterpiece, "The Lord of the Flies." Overall, the novel is far superior to the film because it has thorough descriptions of a character's feelings and depictions of symbolic meaning concerning the objects and important happenings.
First of all, the movie version of the classic, "The Lord of the Flies," seems to be lacking in detail involving the characters. Mainly due to the limited length of the movie, a character's role and his feeling are nonexistent. In the novel, readers can clearly notice how Piggy feels and that he is being treated as an "Outsider" but, in the film version it restricts the audience's comprehension of Piggy's emotions. Similarly, other characters such as Simon and Roger are so unclear in the movie that they may puzzle viewers because the movie fails to distinguish their role. The cinema is unsuccessful in establishing Simon as a "Christ" figure and Roger's murderous nature. On the other hand, the novel installs all these ideas and allows the reader to use their creativity. Therefore, due to the film's inability to give audiences more information about the characters, their roles and their emotions, the novel is much more informative.
Secondly, the novel is capable of giving readers more insight into the story with the use of symbols and hidden meanings. The novel is able to do this because it depicts important underlying messages and critical incidents. For instance, Piggy's glasses represent civilization, reality and reason but once they are destroyed it demonstrates that the boys aren't finding reason in their actions and civilization is becoming a thing of the past.
