Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies

Introduction

A modern classic by a writer awarded the Nobel Prize in 1983, this novel reveals the author's pessimism about the human power to do evil. It shares with A High Wind in Jamaica (1929) the conviction that children are not innocent and pure, but instead must be restrained from brutality and trained to be civilized.

Discussion

In the opening of the novel, the destruction of an aircraft evacuating a group of schoolboys, apparently after an atomic war, leaves the unsupervised children stranded on a tropical island. Clearly, this event is a return to an Edenic existence: The island abounds with fruit trees, and the tropical climate is mild. The boys devote themselves to joyous play, but they choose a leader to supervise duties such as keeping a signal fire going to attract the attention of rescuers. Ralph literally the fair-haired child becomes the first leader, to the dissatisfaction of his rival, Jack, and Jack's enforcer, Roger. Dissent soon follows, but not because of any failure, incompetence, or unfairness on the part of Ralph. Instead, Golding's plot suggests that dissent arises because human beings are contentious, envious, ego-driven, and thirsty for power.

Jack soon challenges Ralph's authority; the boys who follow Jack hunt the island's wild pigs for meat and for the thrill of the chase and the kill. Piggy is also the nickname of an unpopular boy who is intellectually strong but physically weak. And later, when the boys have degenerated to primitive savagery, a pig's head is offered to appease the thing in the jungle that becomes the symbol of the boys' irrational fear (www.heilmile.de). These images of sacrificial offerings, especially in the context of placating the thing in the jungle, suggest that the wild boys are worshipping death rather than nurturing life; they also indicate that ...