Lotf Song Comparison

Chapter 6 – The Dreaming Tree
      Chapter six of Lord of the Flies, Beast from Air, and “The Dreaming Tree” by Dave Matthews Band share a common theme of fear from the destruction of significant structure. In Lord of the Flies, the fire is a major symbol throughout the story and is what basically keeps the islands wheels in motion. The proverbial tree in “The Dreaming Tree” is comparable to the fire because the tree is the characters “rock” in the song, he conquers new feats and it seems as if the tree is the organism that keeps him/her going in life. As soon as the tree dies, the character essentially becomes lost and fearful. The fire has the same affect on the boys of the island. As soon as the fire burns out, things on the island head south.
      In Lord of the Flies, the fire symbolizes progress and the boys flourish with ideas. In Beast from Air, when Samneric fall asleep and lose watch of the fire there, along with the obvious chaos about the island, there is a sort of frightful feel throughout the island. There is a military fighter plane battle above the island which causes a dead parachuter to fall from the sky, Samneric go to check it out and mistake it for the dreaded “beast” on the island. As soon as Samneric light the fire things start going well for the boys on the island, a bond is created as they go on search parties for monsters. Although the boys are still horrified by the thought of the monster, they still come together as one, which rarely occurs in the book.
      The lyrics from “The Dreaming Tree” directly relate to this chapter as there is an abundance of symbolism in both writings. An extremely lucid example from the song that shows this symbolism is:
“Now progress takes away
What forever took to find
Now he's falling hard
He feels the falling dark
How he longs to be
Beneath his dreaming tree
Conquered fear to climb
A moment froze in time
When the girl who first he kissed
Promised him she'd be his
Remembered mother's words...