Lord of the Flies Novel

Introduction

William Golding's first novel, Lord of the Flies, was originally published in 1954, and it has been required reading in most schools and colleges since the early 1960s. The novel centers around a group of English schoolboys whose plane crashes onto a deserted island during World War II. They subsequently try to form a mini-civilization only to reach a horrific outcome. The book's views on human nature and its relationship to civilization, illustrated through the boys' behaviour, has caused it to be one of the most challenged books of the late 20th century (Golding, pp. 5).

The main characters consist of Ralph, Piggy, and Jack. Ralph, one of the older boys, becomes the impromptu leader of the group. He, with the help of the socially inept Piggy, sets about creating a society on the island through building shelters, constructing a signal fire, and organizing the collection of food. Jack is the leader of the hunters and Ralph's rival for power over the group. Eventually most of the boys follow Jack's example and become swept up in the thrill of the hunt, leaving Ralph and the island society behind, with disastrous results. Golding uses these children to explore themes such as individual and society, cruelty, survival, community, ethics, isolation, and spirituality. Lord of the Flies is meant to be an allegory. Its characters represent abstract principles such as reason, societal rules, spirituality, and savagery. Golding seems to think that all of these influence human behavior and have a part in human nature. However, he appears to view savagery as the core of human nature, based on the behavior of most of the boys by the end of the book.

Part 1

Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel that relates the adventures of a group of English schoolboys whose plane crashes on a deserted island, killing all adults aboard. Using their instincts, early social training, and education, the boys attempt to form an organized society. Their efforts result in some of the boys' emerging as leaders or bullies, while others remain destined to follow or to be bullied. Rather than develop a caring and harmonious society free of the corrupting influences of adults, the boys revert to savage behavior and primitive rites.

The novel seems at first to be a simple adventure story of survival, but the growing brutality of the boys toward each other reveals the second level of meaning that questions the nature of civilization and the effect of instinct versus society on behavior. Told from the third-person point of view, the novel opens with a conversation between Ralph and Piggy, who are walking through a tangled jungle on their way back to the beach. The reader learns that they and a large number of other boys, ranging in age from five to 12, were being transported out of a besieged England in the midst of an atomic war when their plane crashed (Colleen, pp. 3).

Part 2

The boys emerge in different, seemingly natural roles as the novel ...