Lord of the flies door William Golding

Information of the author

The author of The Lord of the Flies is William Golding. He was born in Cornwall in 1911. First he was studying to be a scientist, because his parents wanted him to, but then he changed from science to English Literature. In the first years of his career he published a lot of poetry and worked as a theatre actor and director. When World War II broke out he joined the Royal Navy. After the war he began teaching and writing. His first novel he wrote was The Lord of the Flies. After that he wrote a bunch of other novels including The Inheritors, Pincher Martin and The sprite. Golding died in 1993 due to heart failure.

Genre explanation

The genre of this book is Allegorical Novel. Allegorical novels have hidden interpretations in it, which are most of the time shown through symbols, characters, actions and/or events. Ralph, for example, stands for order, leadership and civilization, while Jack stands for the desire of power and savagery. The conch shell stands for order, rules and discipline as well as the signal fire stands for their connection to the civilization. The sow’s head, the Lord of the Flies, stands for the fact that evil lies within every human. As you can see there are a lot of hidden interpretations in this novel and that is why the genre of this novel is Allegorical Novel.

Themes

In the lord of the flies you have a lot of themes. I chose the most important ones, which are: Savagery vs. Civilization, Fear and Leadership.

Savagery vs. Civilization

I think savagery vs. civilization is the main theme from this novel. You see the conflict between Ralph and Jack. Ralph wants to live by rules and wants everybody to be nice to each other. Jack on the other hand starts to develop an aggressive kind of behaviour towards the rest of the group and especially towards Ralph. Jack wants to be the leader and he wants to go hunting, instead of keeping the fire going. He completely lets go of the civilization and turns to savagery.

This is the contrast Golding wants to express in his novel. When people are left to their own devices, there are big differences between their reactions. However, the author implies that it is more in people’s nature to revert to savagery, barbarism and cruelty rather than good behaviour and living by rules. That is the main message from his novel, which is shown by the fact that eventually there are only three boys who want to live by rules and the laws of civilization and the rest of the boys want to go hunting and turn to savagery.

Fear

The littluns (the younger boys) are afraid of the so-called “beastie”. First the older boys don’t believe in the beastie and think it is just the nightmares of the littluns, but then they think they see the beast in real life. (It’s actually just a parachute with a dead man on the top of the mountain). Then they all get really afraid and they even don’t want to come near the mountain anymore. Jack and his hunting tribe decide to go hunt the beast down. The constant fear of the beast drives them even further into savagery and they even kill Simon by accident during one of their feasts. They are so pumped up about the fact they killed a sow, that they kill Simon with their bare hands and teeth.

As you can see fear is a very important theme, because the fear is what drives them into savagery. They are afraid of the beast and want to kill it no matter what.

Leadership

Leadership is also a very important theme. Jack and Ralph both want to be the leader. The group votes and Ralph wins. Jack isn’t very happy, but accepts it. Throughout the story Jack his ideas of leadership get more and more different than the ones from Ralph. Ralph wants to keep the signal fire going and wants everybody to work together. He sees the conch as a symbol of civilization and order. Jack thinks hunting is more important than the fire and he finds the conch a stupid thing. You see that when Jack and Ralph come into a kind of conflict the whole group becomes a little unsteady. Leadership is very important to keep everybody together. When Jack decides to start his own tribe, most of the boys lose track of the civilization, because they choose Jack as their new leader, and Jack reverts to savagery.

Summary (209 words)

A group of boys get stranded on an uninhabited island. Ralph and Piggy discover a conch shell, which they use to gather the others. The group decides that Ralph should be their leader. Jack wants to be leader as well, but accepts defeat. Ralph’s main concern is to get rescued, so they make a signal fire, but Jack wants to hunt instead. The younger boys think there is a beast on the island and everyone becomes afraid. Jack starts his own tribe with himself as leader. Most boys join him, except Ralph, Piggy, Sam and Eric. Jack’s new tribe hunts down a sow and put it’s head on a stake as a sacrifice to the beast. Simon has a vision when he sees the sow’s head as being the Lord of the Flies. Simon realizes that the beast in actually inside everyone and is not something they can hunt or kill. He wants to tell the others, but when he comes back they kill him, thinking he is the beast. Later the savages kill Piggy and try to kill Ralph. They set the forest on fire to lure Ralph out of hiding. Then the group is rescued by a naval officer who saw the smoke from the burning forest.