theme statements of lord of the flies

Themes and Analysis

Lord of the flies, by william golding.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a powerful novel. It's filled with interesting themes, thoughtful symbols, and a particular style of writing that has made it a classic of British literature.

Article written by Lee-James Bovey

P.G.C.E degree.

Several key themes are prevalent throughout the book. It is sometimes referred to as a “book of ideas” and these ideas are explored as the plot unfolds.

Lord of the Flies Themes

The impact of humankind on nature.

This is evident from the first chapter when the plane crashing leaves what Golding describes as a “scar” across the island. This idea is explored further in the early chapters the boys light a fire that escapes their control and yet further diminishes what might be considered an unspoiled island. Some interpret the island almost as a Garden of Eden with the children giving in to temptation by slaughtering the animals there. The final chapter furthers the destruction of nature by mankind as the whole island appears to have been ruined thanks to the effects of the boy’s presence on the island.

Civilization versus savagery

This can be seen throughout as the boys struggle with being removed from organized society. To begin with, they cope well. They construct a form of government represented by the conch that theoretically draws them together and gives them all a voice. As they break away from society this adherence to the rules they have constructed is evident. Golding’s ideas of what savagery is might be outdated and rooted in colonial stereotypes but they are evident for all to see as the boys use masks to dehumanize themselves and their increasing obsession with hunting leads to an increasingly animalistic nature.

Nature of humanity

Perhaps the biggest underlying theme is the idea of the true nature of mankind. Golding explores the idea that mankind is innately evil and that it is only the contrast between society and civilization that prevents that nature from being prevalent. Of course, this overlooks that civilization is a human construct and if all men’s biggest motivation were their inner evil, then that construct would never have existed. Golding’s views largely spring from his role in the navy where he was witness to the atrocities of war but are also informed by his work as a teacher.

Analysis of Key Moments in Lord of the Flies

There are many key moments in ‘ Lord of the Flies ‘ that highlight the boy’s descent into savagery.

• Blowing the conch – this introduces us to the conch which acts as a symbol of society and civilization throughout the novel. It is both the device that brings the children together and in theory the object which allows them all to have a say and therefore run a democratic society.
• The fire gets out of control – This shows the effects that the boys are already having on the island. It also demonstrates how lost the boys are without adults there to guide them as they lose one of the boys and nobody even knows his name.
• Jack fails to kill the pig/Roger throws stones – both of these events show how the boys are currently constrained by the expectations of society. We see as time passes these restraints are lifted and that firstly, Jack can kill a pig and finally, and perhaps more dramatically, Roger is not only okay with hitting somebody with a stone but taking their life with one.
• The hunters put on masks – By covering up their faces, they seem to become free from the constraints of society. It is if it liberates them from humanity and allows them to act on more primal, animalistic urges.
• Sam and Eric find “the beast” – When Sam and Eric feel they have discovered the beast it sets a ripple of panic throughout. This fear sways the boys towards Jack’s leadership as he continues to manipulate the situation to his advantage. If not for this then Simon might never be murdered.
• Creating of the Lord of the Flies – Successfully killing the pig is itself an iconic moment but then leaving a pigs head on a pole is both a gruesome image (one worthy of the book’s title) and also plays a pivotal role in Simon’s story arc.
• Simon’s death – Simon is the one character who never seems to succumb to primal urges and therefore his death if looked at symbolically could be seen as the death of hope for boys.
• Piggy’s death – Piggy’s character represents order and reason. With his death, any chance of resolving the issues between Jack and Ralph vanishes. The conch being smashed at the same time is also symbolic and represents the complete destruction of society.
• The rescue – This is not the happy ending that one might expect with all the boys crying due to their loss of innocence. There is an irony as well as the boys will not be rescued and taken to a Utopia but rather to a civilization plagued by a war that mirrors the war zone they have just left.

Style, Literary Devices, and Tone in Lord of the Flies

Throughout this novel, Golding’s style is straightforward and easy to read. There are no lengthy passages nor does he choose particularly poetic words to describe the events. His writing is powerful without these stylistic devices. The same can be said for his use of literary devices. When used, they are direct. For example, the use of symbolism (see below) and metaphor is very thoughtful but not hard to interpret.

William Golding also employs an aloof or distant tone throughout the book. This reflects the way that the boys treat one another.

Symbols in Lord of the Flies

The conch shell.

The conch shell is one of the major symbols of this novel. It’s used from the beginning of the novel to call the boys together for meetings on the beach. It’s a symbol of civilization and government. But, as the boys lose touch with their civilized sides, the conch shell is discarded.

The Signal Fire

The signal fire is a very important symbol in the novel. It’s first lit on the mountain and then later on the beach with the intent of attracting the attention of passion ships. The fire is maintained diligently at first but as the book progresses and the boys slip farther from civilization, their concentration on the fire wanes. They eventually lose their desire to be rescued. Therefore, as one is making their way through the book, gauging the boys’ concentration on the fire is a great way to understand how “civilized” they are.

The beast is an imaginary creature who frightens the boys. It stands in for their savage instincts and is eventually revealed to be a personification of their dark impulses. It’s only through the boy’s behaviour that the beast exists at all.

What are three themes in Lord of the Flies ?

Three themes in ‘ Lord of the Flies ‘ are civilization vs. savagery, the impact of humankind on nature, and the nature of humanity.

What is the main message of the Lord of the Flies ?

The main message is that if left without rules, society devolves and loses its grasp on what is the morally right thing to do. this is even the case with kids.

How does Ralph lose his innocence in Lord of the Flies ?

He loses his innocence when he witnesses the deaths of Simon and Piggy. These losses in addition to the broader darkness of the island change him.

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About Lee-James Bovey

Lee-James, a.k.a. LJ, has been a Book Analysis team member since it was first created. During the day, he's an English Teacher. During the night, he provides in-depth analysis and summary of books.

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Lord of the Flies Themes

A theme is an overarching idea that runs through a literary text in one or some parts. It makes up the major point the author he wants to convey to his readers. Lord of the Flies is a rich literary text that contains multidimensional themes. Some of the overarching themes are discussed below.

Themes in Lord of the Flies

Loss of innocence.

Loss of innocence is one of the major themes of Lord of the Flies . Piggy, Ralph and “littluns” represent innocence. The death of Piggy and flight of Ralph from fear of death at the hands of Jack and his hunters is the loss of innocence. At first, the innocent boys have become hunters symbolically. However, later in the novel , they turn upon Ralph after killing Piggy. Hence, they become hunters of human life. This is where their innocence is lost in the maze of confusion.

Savageness and Society

‘Savageness’ in the society is another overarching theme of Lord of the Flies . Through the character of Jack and his hunters, William Golding has wonderfully displayed that human nature can quickly turn from prey to savagery. Except for Jack, all others are just followers . The ways of Jack tempt them toward hunting which is savagery in nature. With the passage of time, they become savages and start hunting human beings. This shows how savageness or savagery spread in a society when there are no restrictions.

Vice against Virtue

Vice against virtue is another major theme of the novel. William Golding has deliberately put children in the wilderness to evaluate how virtue is an innate feature of human nature, and how it loses against the vice. Although simple at first, a devious immoral action of Jack to dominate the children by taking leadership from Ralph turns into a vice. It gradually dominates others, and by the end of the novel, Ralph is left alone to represent virtue on that island.

End of Rationalism

Lord of the Flies shows how rationalism is a good virtue but also very difficult to practice. Piggy, the representative of rationalism and rational thinking, is timid when it comes to asserting his rationality. He fears that absurdity is dominating, and it will swallow him. Jack’s irrational reasoning becomes Piggy’s foe. Eventually, Jack succeeds in killing Piggy as soon as he finds an opportunity. With Piggy’s death, the rational thinking among the children comes to an end. Soon they degenerate into a herd of killers.

Absence of Social Norms

A major latent theme that William Golding has put into Lord of the Flies is the presence of social norms and traditions. The idea behind this theme is that it is the pressure of the social norms and traditions that force people to obey laws and rules or traditions. If there is an absence of social norms, people show their true nature, and it is mostly evil and vicious. However, social norms, traditions, and customs protect the weaker group. Hence, Piggy remained safe until there were a proper leadership and rule of conch. Yet he is instantly killed when conch becomes an obsolete thing.

Dehumanization of Relations

Relations between human beings is one of the greatest mysteries . This novel shows when relations between human beings degenerates they reach to low-down state. Seeing the corrupt humans, you may want to believe the animals are better. Jack instantly orders the killing of Piggy when they become two parties, and war for domination ensues. Ralph and Jack are just two boys with normal relations. However, when Jack becomes his enemy, their relationship deteriorates. This is called dehumanization of relations; both boys turn against each other.

The Nature of Evil or Vice

It is generally believed that all human beings are good and that vice dominates only during trying circumstances. However, Lord of the Flies shows a different perspective . It shows that not only human beings are good or bad, but also some have a tendency toward evil or vice such as Jack. This leads to a total lapse of character if there is no social or legal restriction on humans. This also shows that evil spreads quickly if goodness is not present to obstruct it with the same proportion.

Community against Individual

Although the theme of a community against an individual is a minor one, it runs throughout the novel. From the very start, when Ralph becomes the leader and Piggy supports him, Jack turns against them. He forms his own group and community of hunters. Eventually, this community turns against Ralph after killing Piggy. Ralph is left alone and is on the run for his life. It shows how a community persecutes an individual who refuses to conform to destructive rituals.

Progress of Civilization

Lord of the Flies shows the progress of civilization through its incidents. The two group of boys, hunters of Jack and followers of Ralph, compete with each other. Ralph represents civilization, order, and rule, while Jack and his group represent savagery and barbarism. The competition reaches its peak when conch is defied, and rules are broken. Finally, the hunters take over the island and hinder the progress of civilization. The representative of rationality, Piggy is killed, while Ralph runs for life.

Absence of Laws

When the children land on the island, they are left on their own. They do not have any social setup with traditions and rules. Ralph and Piggy try to set up a decent society through the assembly with the help of the conch. However, due to the absence of responsible adult supervision and guidance, they soon resort to violence. The strong group of hunters see that there are no binding laws and punishing authority. Therefore, they form a separate strong group and try to break their rules. Once the rules are broken, they are on the loose. Unfortunately, Piggy is killed in this mayhem. Lack of a leader makes them bolder, and they try to kill Ralph too, who fortunately saves himself when the British officer arrive. This shows that absence of laws creates chaos and disorder that leads to killing the innocents and the weak.

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The Lord of the Flies Themes – Meaning and Main Ideas

Home » Literature Explained – Literary Synopses and Book Summaries » Lord of the Flies » The Lord of the Flies Themes – Meaning and Main Ideas

Main Themes in Lord of The Flies

This novel takes place on a deserted tropical island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. While the location for the island does contribute to the story, the interesting thing about how setting functions in this novel is that it’s what’s happening outside this isolated island that carries the most weight. We know that the plane-crashed boys were being evacuated from war-torn England in the midst of a heated global war sometime in the early 1950s.

Historically speaking, this is not long at all after the end of World War II, so the audience can either guess that WWII never ended in this fictional world, or that World War III broke out not long after. The global strife is reflected in the behaviors of the stranded boys who are trying to make a sort of makeshift society work for them while the world around them crumbles.

There are many motifs in The Lord of the Flies that help to support overall thematic elements: nature’s beauty, biblical references, bullying, and symbols of savagery. Each of these motifs serves to highlight an overarching dichotomy that exists as the action unravels—the conflict between human instincts to be wild and the more intellectual desire to overcome any type of savagery or will to act in a way that is at odds with human order/intelligence.

Lord of the Flies Themes

What are the major themes of Lord of the Flies?

• Civilization vs. Savage Nature
• Innate Evils of Humanity

Loss of Innocence Through Struggle

Civilization vs. The Savage Nature

This conflicting desire is that of humanity’s wild instincts. When we are a part of a healthy society with order and every person is cared for, we are less likely to notice these wild impulses. The Lord of the Flies removes two things from humans that help us see this dichotomy most clearly—the presence of a well-established social order and way to maintain this social order, and the lack of age. Using children as the characters removes decades of learned behaviors that could impede the expression of the wild nature.

According to the author, William Golding, humanity contains vast evils just like it contains vast goods. This is how the terrors of war are able to spread unchecked, for example. Although the boys were probably “proper” English boys before their plane crash, they slip into savagery over time. Even the most cultured of the boys eventually succumb to the impulse to act wild and throw caution to the wind.

The Innate Evils of Humanity

Social conditioning helps us to curb this impulse and focus more on acts of good. When the social conditioning is removed from the situation, anything could happen. Many of the boys struggle to maintain some level of order and civility amongst them, but eventually all relinquish the struggle and engage in acts of violence, chaos, etc.

For example, all the boys work themselves into a frenzy, even Piggy and Ralph. When Simon comes upon the scene, they perceive him as an outsider and rip him apart with their hands and teeth, no questions asked.

This shows the view that no matter who we are or where we come from, we each have the potential for good or evil within us (civilization or savagery). Ralph is devastated the next morning, when he realizes that despite all his efforts to remain civil, he has lapsed and let his innate evil out during the killing of Simon.

Over a matter of time, many become bloodthirsty and savage, desiring power and control above any type of meaningful social order. Any innocence these boys maintained at the beginning of the story is quickly lost, and the exploration of this concept is fascinating. With or without social structures, all children will eventually experience some sort of loss of innocence when they start to understand deeper, darker, more adult concepts about life.

However, they are able to do so with support and structure. On the deserted island, with no guidance or structure in place to navigate this loss of innocence, many of the boys rapidly turn wild—they obsess over hunting and killing and create rituals around this, for example.

The important thing to understand about the loss of innocence of these boys is not that is was done to them but rather a natural experience that they each have as a result of living in a wild environment. Nature symbolism is important to look out for when exploring this theme. For example, Simon’s loss of innocence happens when he is sitting in the forest glade that he admires for its natural beauty. When he is sitting there and reflecting on their situation one day, he realizes that there is no external monster posing a threat to the wellbeing of the boys. Instead, it’s what’s inside of them that torments them—their wild natures are screaming to be acknowledge and can only be fought off for so long.

'Lord of the Flies' Themes, Symbols, and Literary Devices

• B.A., English, Rutgers University

Lord of the Flies , William Golding's tale of British schoolboys stranded on a deserted island, is nightmarish and brutal. Through its exploration of themes including good versus evil, illusion versus reality, and chaos versus order, Lord of the Flies raises powerful questions about the nature of humankind.

Good vs. Evil

The central theme of Lord of the Flies is human nature: are we naturally good, naturally evil, or something else entirely? This question runs through the entire novel from beginning to end.

When the boys gather on the beach for the first time, summoned by the sound of the conch, they have not yet internalized the fact that they are now outside the normal bounds of civilization. Notably, one boy, Roger, remembers throwing stones at younger boys but deliberately missing his targets for fear of retribution by adults. The boys decide to set up a democratic society in order to maintain order. They elect Ralph as their leader and create a crude mechanism for discussion and debate, designating that anyone who holds the conch has the right to be heard. They build shelters and show concern for the youngest among them. They also play make believe and other games, exulting in their freedom from chores and rules.

Golding seems to suggest that the democratic society they create is simply another game. The rules are only as effective as their enthusiasm for the game itself. It is notable that at the beginning of the novel, all the boys assume rescue is imminent, and thus that the rules they're accustomed to following will soon be reimposed. As they come to believe that they will not be returned to civilization anytime soon, the boys abandon their game of democratic society, and their behavior becomes increasingly fearful, savage, superstitious, and violent.

Golding’s question is perhaps not whether humans are inherently good or evil, but rather whether these concepts have any true meaning. While it is tempting to see Ralph and Piggy as ‛good’ and Jack and his hunters as ‛evil,’ the truth is more complex. Without Jack’s hunters, the boys would have suffered hunger and deprivation. Ralph, the believer in rules, lacks authority and the ability to enforce his rules, leading to disaster. Jack’s rage and violence leads to the destruction of the world. Piggy’s knowledge and book learning are proven as to be meaningless as his technology, represented by the fire-starting glasses, when they fall into the hands of boys who do not understand them.

All of these issues are mirrored subtly by the war that frames the story. Although only vaguely described, it is clear that the adults outside the island are engaged in a conflict, inviting comparisons and forcing us to consider whether the difference is merely a matter of scale.

Illusion vs. Reality

The nature of reality is explored in several ways in the novel. On the one hand, appearances seem to doom the boys to certain roles—most notably Piggy. Piggy initially expresses the dim hope that he can escape the abuse and bullying of his past through his alliance with Ralph and his usefulness as a well-read child. However, he quickly falls back into the role of the bullied ‛nerd’ and becomes reliant on Ralph’s protection.

On the other hand, many aspects of the island are not clearly perceived by the boys. Their belief in The Beast stems from their own imaginations and fears, but it quickly takes on what seems to the boys to be a physical form. In this way, The Beast becomes very real to the boys. As the belief in The Beast grows, Jack and his hunters descend into savagery. They paint their faces, changing their appearance in order to project a fearsome and frightening visage that belies their true childish nature.

More subtly, what seemed real in the beginning of the book—Ralph’s authority, the power of the conch, the assumption of rescue—slowly erodes over the course of the story, revealed to be nothing more than the rules of an imaginary game. In the end, Ralph is alone, there is no tribe, the conch is destroyed (and Piggy murdered) in the ultimate refutation of its power, and the boys abandon the signal fires, making no effort to prepare for or attract rescue.

At the terrifying climax, Ralph is hunted through the island as everything burns—and then, in a final twist of reality, this descent into horror is revealed to be unreal. Upon discovering they have in fact been rescued, the surviving boys immediately collapse and burst into tears.

Order vs. Chaos

The civilized and reasonable behavior of the boys at the beginning of the novel is predicated on the expected return of an ultimate authority: adult rescuers. When the boys lose faith in the possibility of rescue, their orderly society collapses. In a similar way, the morality of the adult world is governed by a criminal justice system, armed forces, and spiritual codes. If these controlling factors were to be removed, the novel implies, society would quickly collapse into chaos.

Everything in the story is reduced to its power or lack thereof. Piggy’s glasses can start fires, and thus are coveted and fought over. The conch, which symbolizes order and rules, can challenge raw physical power, and so it is destroyed. Jack’s hunters can feed hungry mouths, and thus they have an outsize influence over the other boys, who quickly do as they are told despite their misgivings. Only the return of adults at the end of the novel changes this equation, bringing a more powerful force to the island and instantly reimposing the old rules.

On a superficial level, the novel tells a story of survival in a realistic style. The process of building shelters, gathering food, and seeking rescue are recorded with a high level of detail. However, Golding develops several symbols throughout the story that slowly take on increasing weight and power in the story.

The Conch comes to represent reason and order. In the beginning of the novel, it has the power to quiet the boys and force them to listen to wisdom. As more boys defect to Jack’s chaotic, fascist tribe, the Conch's color fades. In the end, Piggy—the only boy who still has faith in the Conch—is killed trying to protect it.

The Pig’s Head

The Lord of the Flies, as described by a hallucinating Simon, is a pig’s head on a spike being consumed by flies. The Lord of the Flies is a symbol of the increasing savagery of the boys, on display for all to see.

Ralph, Jack, Piggy, and Simon

Each of the boys represent fundamental natures. Ralph represents order. Piggy represents knowledge. Jack represents violence. Simon represents good, and is in fact the only truly selfless boy on the island, which makes his death at the hands of Ralph and the other supposedly civilized boys shocking.

Piggy’s Glasses

Piggy’s glasses are designed to provide clear vision, but they are transformed into a tool to make fire. The glasses serve as a symbol of control more powerful than the Conch. The Conch is purely symbolic, representing rules and order, while the glasses convey true physical power.

The beast represents the unconscious, ignorant terror of the boys. As Simon thinks, "The beast is the boys." It did not exist on the island before their arrival.

Literary Device: Allegory

Lord of the Flies is written in a straightforward style. Golding eschews complex literary devices and simply tells the story in chronological order. However, the entire novel serves as a complex allegory, in which every major character represents some larger aspect of society and the world. Thus, their behavior is in many ways predetermined. Ralph represents society and order, and so he consistently attempts to organize and hold the boys to standards of behavior. Jack represents savagery and primitive fear, and so he consistently devolves to a primitive state.

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Lord of the Flies

By william golding, lord of the flies themes, civilization vs. savagery.

The overarching theme of Lord of the Flies is the conflict between the human impulse towards savagery and the rules of civilization which are designed to contain and minimize it. Throughout the novel, the conflict is dramatized by the clash between Ralph and Jack, who respectively represent civilization and savagery. The differing ideologies are expressed by each boy's distinct attitudes towards authority. While Ralph uses his authority to establish rules, protect the good of the group, and enforce the moral and ethical codes of the English society the boys were raised in, Jack is interested in gaining power over the other boys to gratify his most primal impulses. When Jack assumes leadership of his own tribe, he demands the complete subservience of the other boys, who not only serve him but worship him as an idol. Jack's hunger for power suggests that savagery does not resemble anarchy so much as a totalitarian system of exploitation and illicit power.

Golding's emphasis on the negative consequences of savagery can be read as a clear endorsement of civilization. In the early chapters of the novel, he suggests that one of the important functions of civilized society is to provide an outlet for the savage impulses that reside inside each individual. Jack's initial desire to kill pigs to demonstrate his bravery, for example, is channeled into the hunt, which provides needed food for the entire group. As long as he lives within the rules of civilization, Jack is not a threat to the other boys; his impulses are being re-directed into a productive task. Rather, it is when Jack refuses to recognize the validity of society and rejects Ralph's authority that the dangerous aspects of his character truly emerge. Golding suggests that while savagery is perhaps an inescapable fact of human existence, civilization can mitigate its full expression.

The rift between civilization and savagery is also communicated through the novel's major symbols: the conch shell, which is associated with Ralph, and The Lord of the Flies , which is associated with Jack. The conch shell is a powerful marker of democratic order on the island, confirming both Ralph's leadership-determined by election-and the power of assembly among the boys. Yet, as the conflict between Ralph and Jack deepens, the conch shell loses symbolic importance. Jack declares that the conch is meaningless as a symbol of authority and order, and its decline in importance signals the decline of civilization on the island. At the same time, The Lord of the Flies, which is an offering to the mythical "beast" on the island, is increasingly invested with significance as a symbol of the dominance of savagery on the island, and of Jack's authority over the other boys. The Lord of the Flies represents the unification of the boys under Jack's rule as motivated by fear of "outsiders": the beast and those who refuse to accept Jack's authority. The destruction of the conch shell at the scene of Piggy 's murder signifies the complete eradication of civilization on the island, while Ralph's demolition of The Lord of the Flies-he intends to use the stick as a spear-signals his own descent into savagery and violence. By the final scene, savagery has completely displaced civilization as the prevailing system on the island.

Individualism vs. Community

One of the key concerns of Lord of the Flies is the role of the individual in society. Many of the problems on the island-the extinguishing of the signal fire, the lack of shelters, the mass abandonment of Ralph's camp, and the murder of Piggy-stem from the boys' implicit commitment to a principle of self-interest over the principle of community. That is, the boys would rather fulfill their individual desires than cooperate as a coherent society, which would require that each one act for the good of the group. Accordingly, the principles of individualism and community are symbolized by Jack and Ralph, respectively. Jack wants to "have fun" on the island and satisfy his bloodlust, while Ralph wants to secure the group's rescue, a goal they can achieve only by cooperating. Yet, while Ralph's vision is the most reasonable, it requires work and sacrifice on the part of the other boys, so they quickly shirk their societal duties in favor of fulfilling their individual desires. The shelters do not get built because the boys would rather play; the signal fire is extinguished when Jack's hunters fail to tend to it on schedule.

The boys' self-interestedness culminates, of course, when they decide to join Jack's tribe, a society without communal values whose appeal is that Jack will offer them total freedom. The popularity of his tribe reflects the enormous appeal of a society based on individual freedom and self-interest, but as the reader soon learns, the freedom Jack offers his tribe is illusory. Jack implements punitive and irrational rules and restricts his boys' behavior far more than Ralph did. Golding thus suggests not only that some level of communal system is superior to one based on pure self-interest, but also that pure individual freedom is an impossible value to sustain within a group dynamic, which will always tend towards societal organization. The difficult question, of course, is what individuals are willing to give up to gain the benefits of being in the group.

The Nature of Evil

Is evil innate within the human spirit, or is it an influence from an external source? What role do societal rules and institutions play in the existence of human evil? Does the capacity for evil vary from person to person, or does it depend on the circumstances each individual faces? These questions are at the heart of Lord of the Flies which, through detailed depictions of the boys' different responses to their situation, presents a complex articulation of humanity's potential for evil.

It is important to note that Golding's novel rejects supernatural or religious accounts of the origin of human evil. While the boys fear the "beast" as an embodiment of evil similar to the Christian concept of Satan, the novel emphasizes that this interpretation is not only mistaken but also, ironically, the motivation for the boys' increasingly cruel and violent behavior. It is their irrational fear of the beast that informs the boys' paranoia and leads to the fatal schism between Jack and Ralph and their respective followers, and this is what prevents them from recognizing and addressing their responsibility for their own impulses. Rather, as The Lord of the Flies communicates to Simon in the forest glade, the "beast" is an internal force, present in every individual, and is thus incapable of being truly defeated. That the most ethical characters on the island-Simon and Ralph-each come to recognize his own capacity for evil indicates the novel's emphasis on evil's universality among humans.

Even so, the novel is not entirely pessimistic about the human capacity for good. While evil impulses may lurk in every human psyche, the intensity of these impulses-and the ability to control them-appear to vary from individual to individual. Through the different characters, the novel presents a continuum of evil, ranging from Jack and Roger , who are eager to engage in violence and cruelty, to Ralph and Simon, who struggle to contain their brutal instincts. We may note that the characters who struggle most successfully against their evil instincts do so by appealing to ethical or social codes of behavior. For example, Ralph and Piggy demand the return of Piggy's glasses because it is the "right thing to do." Golding suggests that while evil may be present in us all, it can be successfully suppressed by the social norms that are imposed on our behavior from without or by the moral norms we decide are inherently "good," which we can internalize within our wills.

The ambiguous and deeply ironic conclusion of Lord of the Flies , however, calls into question society's role in shaping human evil. The naval officer, who repeats Jack's rhetoric of nationalism and militarism, is engaged in a bloody war that is responsible for the boys' aircraft crash on the island and that is mirrored by the civil war among the survivors. In this sense, much of the evil on the island is a result not of the boys' distance from society, but of their internalization of the norms and ideals of that society-norms and ideals that justify and even thrive on war. Are the boys corrupted by the internal pressures of an essentially violent human nature, or have they been corrupted by the environment of war they were raised in? Lord of the Flies offers no clear solution to this question, provoking readers to contemplate the complex relationships among society, morality, and human nature.

Man vs. Nature

Lord of the Flies introduces the question of man's ideal relationship with the natural world. Thrust into the completely natural environment of the island, in which no humans exist or have existed, the boys express different attitudes towards nature that reflect their distinct personalities and ideological leanings. The boys' relationships to the natural world generally fall into one of three categories: subjugation of nature, harmony with nature, and subservience to nature. The first category, subjugation of nature, is embodied by Jack, whose first impulse on the island is to track, hunt, and kill pigs. He seeks to impose his human will on the natural world, subjugating it to his desires. Jack's later actions, in particular setting the forest fire, reflect his deepening contempt for nature and demonstrate his militaristic, violent character. The second category, harmony with nature, is embodied by Simon, who finds beauty and peace in the natural environment as exemplified by his initial retreat to the isolated forest glade. For Simon, nature is not man's enemy but is part of the human experience. The third category, subservience to nature, is embodied by Ralph and is the opposite position from Jack's. Unlike Simon, Ralph does not find peaceful harmony with the natural world; like Jack, he understands it as an obstacle to human life on the island. But while Jack responds to this perceived conflict by acting destructively towards animals and plant life, Ralph responds by retreating from the natural world. He does not participate in hunting or in Simon's excursions to the deep wilderness of the forest; rather, he stays on the beach, the most humanized part of the island. As Jack's hunting expresses his violent nature to the other boys and to the reader, Ralph's desire to stay separate from the natural world emphasizes both his reluctance to tempt danger and his affinity for civilization.

Dehumanization of Relationships

In Lord of the Flies , one of the effects of the boys' descent into savagery is their increasing inability to recognize each other's humanity. Throughout the novel, Golding uses imagery to imply that the boys are no longer able to distinguish between themselves and the pigs they are hunting and killing for food and sport. In Chapter Four, after the first successful pig hunt, the hunters re-enact the hunt in a ritual dance, using Maurice as a stand-in for the doomed pig. This episode is only a dramatization, but as the boys' collective impulse towards complete savagery grows stronger, the parallels between human and animal intensify. In Chapter Seven, as several of the boys are hunting the beast, they repeat the ritual with Robert as a stand-in for the pig; this time, however, they get consumed by a kind of "frenzy" and come close to actually killing him. In the same scene, Jack jokes that if they do not kill a pig next time, they can kill a littlun in its place. The repeated substitution of boy for pig in the childrens' ritual games, and in their conversation, calls attention to the consequences of their self-gratifying behavior: concerned only with their own base desires, the boys have become unable to see each other as anything more than objects subject to their individual wills. The more pigs the boys kill, the easier it becomes for them to harm and kill each other. Mistreating the pigs facilitates this process of dehumanization.

The early episodes in which boys are substituted for pigs, either verbally or in the hunting dance, also foreshadow the tragic events of the novel's later chapters, notably the murders of Simon and Piggy and the attempt on Ralph's life. Simon, a character who from the outset of the novel is associated with the natural landscape he has an affinity for, is murdered when the other children mistake him for "the beast"-a mythical inhuman creature that serves as an outlet for the children's fear and sadness. Piggy's name links him symbolically to the wild pigs on the island, the immediate target for Jack's violent impulses; from the outset, when the other boys refuse to call him anything but "Piggy," Golding establishes the character as one whose humanity is, in the eyes of the other boys, ambiguous. The murders of Simon and Piggy demonstrate the boys' complete descent into savagery. Both literally (Simon) and symbolically (Piggy), the boys have become indistinguishable from the animals that they stalk and kill.

The Loss of Innocence

At the end of Lord of the Flies , Ralph weeps "for the end of innocence," a lament that retroactively makes explicit one of the novel's major concerns, namely, the loss of innocence. When the boys are first deserted on the island, they behave like children, alternating between enjoying their freedom and expressing profound homesickness and fear. By the end of the novel, however, they mirror the warlike behavior of the adults of the Home Counties: they attack, torture, and even murder one another without hesitation or regret. The loss of the boys' innocence on the island runs parallel to, and informs their descent into savagery, and it recalls the Bible's narrative of the Fall of Man from paradise.

Accordingly, the island is coded in the early chapters as a kind of paradise, with idyllic scenery, fresh fruit, and glorious weather. Yet, as in the Biblical Eden, the temptation toward corruption is present: the younger boys fear a "snake-thing." The "snake-thing" is the earliest incarnation of the "beast" that, eventually, will provoke paranoia and division among the group. It also explicitly recalls the snake from the Garden of Eden, the embodiment of Satan who causes Adam and Eve's fall from grace. The boys' increasing belief in the beast indicates their gradual loss of innocence, a descent that culminates in tragedy. We may also note that the landscape of the island itself shifts from an Edenic space to a hellish one, as marked by Ralph's observation of the ocean tide as an impenetrable wall, and by the storm that follows Simon's murder.

The forest glade that Simon retreats to in Chapter Three is another example of how the boys' loss of innocence is registered on the natural landscape of the island. Simon first appreciates the clearing as peaceful and beautiful, but when he returns, he finds The Lord of the Flies impaled at its center, a powerful symbol of how the innocence of childhood has been corrupted by fear and savagery.

Even the most sympathetic boys develop along a character arc that traces a fall from innocence (or, as we might euphemize, a journey into maturity). When Ralph is first introduced, he is acting like a child, splashing in the water, mocking Piggy, and laughing. He tells Piggy that he is certain that his father, a naval commander, will rescue him, a conviction that the reader understands as the wishful thinking of a little boy. Ralph repeats his belief in their rescue throughout the novel, shifting his hope that his own father will discover them to the far more realistic premise that a passing ship will be attracted by the signal fire on the island. By the end of the novel, he has lost hope in the boys' rescue altogether. The progression of Ralph's character from idealism to pessimistic realism expresses the extent to which life on the island has eradicated his childhood.

The Negative Consequences of War

In addition to its other resonances, Lord of the Flies is in part an allegory of the Cold War. Thus, it is deeply concerned with the negative effects of war on individuals and for social relationships. Composed during the Cold War, the novel's action unfolds from a hypothetical atomic war between England and "the Reds," which was a clear word for communists. Golding thus presents the non-violent tensions that were unfolding during the 1950s as culminating into a fatal conflict-a narrative strategy that establishes the novel as a cautionary tale against the dangers of ideological, or "cold," warfare, becoming hot. Moreover, we may understand the conflict among the boys on the island as a reflection of the conflict between the democratic powers of the West and the communist presence throughout China, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union. (China's cultural revolution had not yet occurred, but its communist revolution was fresh in Western memory.) Ralph, an embodiment of democracy, clashes tragically with Jack, a character who represents a style of military dictatorship similar to the West's perception of communist leaders such as Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. Dressed in a black cape and cap, with flaming red hair, Jack also visually evokes the "Reds" in the fictional world of the novel and the historical U.S.S.R., whose signature colors were red and black. As the tension between the boys comes to a bloody head, the reader sees the dangerous consequences of ideological conflict.

The arrival of the naval officer at the conclusion of the narrative underscores these allegorical points. The officer embodies war and militaristic thinking, and as such, he is symbolically linked to the brutal Jack. The officer is also English and thus linked to the democratic side of the Cold War, which the novel vehemently defends. The implications of the officer's presence are provocative: Golding suggests that even a war waged in the name of civilization can reduce humanity to a state of barbarism. The ultimate scene of the novel, in which the boys weep with grief for the loss of their innocence, implicates contemporary readers in the boys' tragedy. The boys are representatives, however immature and untutored, of the wartime impulses of the period.

Lord of the Flies Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Lord of the Flies is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

How do the boys respond to Jack's call for Ralph's removal as chief? How does Jack react? Respond with evidence from the text.

There is a lot of immaturity here. The other boys refuse to vote Ralph out of power. Enraged, Jack has a tantrum and runs away from the group, saying that he is leaving and that anyone who likes is welcome to join him.The boys don't like the open...

What does Ralph recall hearing From Simon and seeing in the sky ?

The boys would see cargo planes in the sky and fishing boats in the sea.

Wooden huts on or near the beach are not called……

I'm not sure what you are looking for here, perhaps "shelters".

Study Guide for Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies study guide contains a biography of William Golding, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Lord of the Flies
• Lord of the Flies Summary
• Lord of the Flies Video
• Character List

Essays for Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

• Two Faces of Man
• The Relationship Between Symbolism and Theme in Lord of the Flies
• A Tainted View of Society
• Death and Social Collapse in Lord of the Flies
• Lumination: The Conquest of Mankind's Darkness

Lesson Plan for Lord of the Flies

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Lord of the Flies
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Lord of the Flies Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Lord of the Flies

• Introduction

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Lord of the Flies Summary, Themes, and Expert Analysis

July 15, 2023

If you haven’t read Lord of the Flies , the 1954 novel by Nobel-prize-winning British author William Golding, you may still recognize its oft-cited title. Ever since its publication, Golding’s tale of a group of young boys stranded on a desert island and the ruthless infighting that ensues has become a critical shorthand for stories of that same mold. David Shariatmadari of The Guardian has used it to describe uncannily similar real-life psychological experiments at a 1950s boys’ summer camp. And the actress Melanie Lynskey invoked it in a recent interview when she described the gender-flipped conceit of her hit show Yellowjackets as “ Lord of the Flies with teen girls .” Seventy years later, the novel has become more relevant as political tribalism has returned to the forefront. We provide a Lord of the Flies summary and analysis. Further, we explain why it has such a broad and enduring appeal.

Lord of the Flies Summary

The novel begins as a fair-haired boy of twelve named Ralph approaches a tropical lagoon, having shed some of his heavy school uniform. He quickly meets a shorter and chubbier boy wearing thick spectacles, and the two question the whereabouts of the pilot and other children. We glean from their conversation that they were part of a group of boys being evacuated from war. Their plane has crashed following what they suspect to have been an enemy attack. The heavier boy never reveals his name but tells Ralph that childhood bullies had given him the cruel nickname “Piggy.”

Ralph and Piggy discover a large conch shell and, realizing the absence of adult caretakers, blow into it to summon other survivors. Small groups of boys emerge in response to the sound and gather around Ralph. They immediately seem to respect Ralph’s authority because he holds the conch shell, which makes him resemble the men with megaphones who had helped with the evacuation.

Then a larger party of boys emerges from the forest, marching in unison and wearing matching uniforms. The group is revealed to be a church choir, led by an ardent redhead named Jack Merridew. Jack and his followers are quick to antagonize Piggy for his weight, glasses, and asthma, and Ralph makes matters worse by revealing Piggy’s hated nickname to the others. Additionally, one of the choir boys faints in the oppressive heat. Eventually, Jack demands a vote for who will be chief of the survivors. Obvious candidates are Piggy, who is evidently the most intelligent of the boys, and Jack, who evinces a hunger for leadership. However, the group selects Ralph based on his large size, calm demeanor, and possession of the summoning conch shell.

Lord of the Flies Summary (Continued)

Ralph then selects Jack and the boy who fainted, named Simon, to go on an exploratory expedition of the island. The trio head for higher ground to survey the surrounding area. While traveling, Jack nearly kills a piglet he finds caught in underbrush but hesitates with his knife. After reaching the peak of a mountain, the three boys confirm they are on a small island and return to camp.

During a second meeting, Ralph encourages the boys to establish a system of rules in the absence of adults. Jack supports Ralph, suggesting that rules are the backbone of English cultural superiority and what can distinguish the boys from “savages.” Ralph also explains that his father is in the Navy and that naval ships are sure to find them eventually. Despite these reassurances, one small boy with a birthmark on his face expresses fear of a snake-like “beastie” on the island.

Following the meeting, Ralph and the others build a fire at the top of the mountain. They use Piggy’s glasses to spark the flame. They hope that smoke from the fire will serve as a beacon for any nearby ships. However, this first major project is also the group’s first major failure. The fire grows too large and spreads to part of the nearby forest. Piggy notes that they have failed to make a headcount of the many younger boys, which the group calls “littluns,” and worries whether some have been caught up in the flames. The others dismiss his concern, but notably, the small boy with the birthmark is missing after the fire.

Some time afterward, Ralph, Jack, and Simon are busy with different tasks and frequently quarrel about what should be prioritized. Ralph is most concerned with maintaining the fire, while Jack is eager to hunt for meat. Meanwhile, Simon has been working to erect shelters for the littluns. Many of the other boys devote most of their time to play, doing little work. There is also generalized fear of the “beastie” and a sense that there is something ominous about the island. One day, Ralph notices a ship dotting the horizon and is dismayed to realize that the fire has gone out. He discovers that Jack has recruited the two boys responsible for the fire for a hunt. Ralph confronts Jack, who is eager to celebrate his first successful pig hunt. In the ensuing heated argument, Piggy’s glasses are broken on one side.

Subsequently, tensions escalate as Jack continues to contradict Ralph’s appeals for order. Increasingly defining himself as a hunter, Jack urges the others to value their strength and power over the world of the island. Fears of monsters further complicate matters, as a rumor spreads that the beastie comes from the ocean to hunt the boys. At the same time, a plane is shot down in an aerial dogfight far above.

The dead pilot is parachuted onto the island near the top of the mountain where the fire is kept. Sam and Eric discover the body in the night. They are horrified when the figure appears to move as wind pulls at the parachute. Believing this to be the feared monster, Ralph, Simon, Jack, and a boy named Roger conduct a search. They stumble upon the body in the night, witnessing the same phenomenon as the wind picks up, and scamper away.

Ralph presides over a panicked meeting back at the camp. Jack interposes to question Ralph’s authority, comparing his cowardice to the ostracized Piggy. He calls for a vote to remove Ralph as chief. This coup initially fails, as the other boys refuse to take action to remove Ralph as chief. A humiliated Jack storms off into the forest. With the entire group believing the monster has taken up residence on the mountain, Ralph decides to build the fire closer to the beach. After the meeting, several of the boys, including Roger, covertly slip away to the forest to join Jack. He leads them on a hunt of a sow, driving her away from her litter of newborn piglets. After killing and dressing the sow, Jack leaves the pig’s head on a sharpened stick as an offering for the beast.

Eventually, the hunters realize they will need to steal fire from Ralph’s camp to cook the meat and hatch a plan. While sleeping in their shelters, Ralph, Piggy, and the other boys awaken to a violent attack. Naked and covered in body paint, Jack’s band of hunters steal some of the fire for themselves. Meanwhile, Simon discovers the severed pig’s head, now swarming with flies amid its decay. An imagined conversation begins between Simon and the pig’s head, which is revealed as the titular Lord of the Flies.

As ominous storm clouds amass overhead, the Lord of the Flies taunts Simon in the voice of a schoolmaster. Significantly, he repeats Jack’s imperatives that the boys should have fun. Simon eventually faints once again when he is overwhelmed by the Lord of the Flies threats. When Simon later awakens, he comes to discover the parachuter’s body and realizes the boys’ earlier mistake.

Summary (Continued)

Determined to share this good news with the others, Simon heads down to the beach. There, Ralph and Piggy discuss how much of their camp has deserted since the attack. Many of the boys have been enticed to the other camp with the promise of a pig feast, which Ralph and Piggy decide to investigate. At the feast, Jack and Ralph resume their argument over who should lead the group. Piggy urges Ralph to leave with him before the situation escalates.

The other boys begin playacting their hunting ritual, which includes the chant, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!”. This play hunt becomes real when a mysterious figure emerges from the forest and moves toward the group. All the boys, including Ralph and Piggy, violently attack and kill the figure. They realize too late that it is Simon, coming to relay his news. The tide of the ocean carries his dead body away.

Afterward, the only boys who remain loyal to Ralph are Piggy, Sam and Eric, and a few littluns. Ralph and Piggy feel immense guilt for Simon’s death. They fend off another attack from Jack and his crew in the night, but this time Piggy’s glasses are stolen. Ralph expresses dismay at how the boys have become “savages” and lost sight of their central objective of being rescued. He decides to confront Jack at his camp. There Jack orders the others to seize Sam and Eric. Piggy attempts to return the group to order, invoking the power of the conch he holds. His impassioned speech for rules and a rescue plan fails to make an impression. Above him, the sadistic Roger uses a lever to push a great rock on top of Piggy. It instantly kills him and shatters the conch shell. Again, Piggy’s body is sucked away into the tide.

Jack’s tribe then attacks Ralph, who immediately flees. While running away, Ralph discovers the Lord of the Flies with its evil grin. He strikes it twice, causing it to fall to the ground and break. Sneaking back to Jack’s camp, Ralph encounters Sam and Eric. They have been coerced into serving as Jack’s guards. Out of loyalty to Ralph, they beg him to leave. They warn him that Roger has sharpened a stick at both ends. While Ralph is confused by the meaning of this, we can infer that Jack intends to make Ralph the new Lord of the Flies. Although Ralph finds a good hiding place, the others create a large fire to smoke him out. In the novel’s final climax, Ralph assumes the role of the boar in a hunt conducted by the other boys.

Mirroring the beginning of the novel, the fire quickly gets out of control and engulfs much of the island. Ralph makes a final desperate sprint for his life, falling to his face at the beach. When he stands, he sees in front of him a man in a naval officer uniform. The officer surveys Ralph and the spear-toting boys who have followed him. After confirming that the boys are British, he suggests that they are having “fun and games.” The large fire has drawn the officer’s ship to the island and the boys are effectively rescued. The alarming appearance of the boys seems to disappoint the officer, who says he would expect better of British children. Ralph begins to explain how the situation on the island deteriorated. However, the officer interrupts to suggest that their ordeal mirrors the plot of Ballantyne’s novel, The Coral Island.

Rendered mute, Ralph recalls the early Edenic paradise of the island that contrasts with the recent atrocities he’s witnessed. He begins to cry, which gives way to a choir of sobbing as the boys around him join in. The narrator explains that “Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.” With his stereotypical stiff upper lip, the British seem embarrassed by this display of emotion. In the novel’s final moment, he looks away to the horizon to allow the boys to collect themselves.

Lord of the Flies Themes—Morality and Realpolitik

The central theme of Lord of the Flies concerns the tenuous nature and questionable origins of human morality. Golding principally examines this theme by setting the novel during a time of war and focusing on child characters. While it is initially easy to see the boys as purely victims of adult cruelty, they quickly shed their innocent guise. With planes occasionally sparring high above, the war that breaks out on the island offers a microcosmic example of man’s inhumanity toward man. While the following sections examine other themes within the novel, it is arguable that they all stem from this main consideration of human morality.

The novel offers little indication that the boys’ early effort to form a community of rules and care stems from a coherent set of ethics or moral codes. As with most of their behavior on the island, their early bid to form a democratic society seems to be just another form of play. Without a commonly shared view of morality, the boys are swayed by Jack’s sadistic realpolitik, or power politics based on practical rather than moral considerations. Moral considerations also disappear in the face of hunger and coercive violence. Both factors force more and more boys into Jack’s camp. From beginning-to-end, the novel concerns the ease through which codes of morality fall before strong personalities and survival instincts.

Lord of the Flies Themes—Religion and Secularism

The title also clues us into the way the novel poses provocative questions about the ostensibly religious source of human morality. “Lord of the Flies” is another name for Beelzebub, or Satan in Christian theology. This fact has provoked a range of criticism examining the novel as a Christian allegory , in which various characters stand in for Biblical figures. For example, it is easy to interpret Simon as analogous to Jesus Christ. Like Jesus, Simon is caring of the meek. Further, he seems to have prophetic abilities, is derided for his madness, and dies a sacrificial death. But importantly, Simon is also the character to discover that the feared beast is a dead human body.

Subverting expectations established by the title, Simon’s discovery shatters the shared illusion of a supernatural or cosmic evil inhabiting the island. In other words, the novel’s most likely stand-in for Jesus Christ ultimately espouses the message of secularism. Rather than focusing on religious tradition as the source of morality, the novel suggests that humanity often erroneously looks to superstition for moral guidance. The boys kill Simon and continue to believe in the beast, which spurs their increasingly immoral behavior.

Lord of the Flies Themes—Intelligence and Power

Even as the novel draws attention to how illusions can negatively influence human behavior, it is also surprisingly cynical about the ability of intelligence to counter forms of ignorance. The obvious representative of intelligence in the novel is Piggy, who is regularly distinguished as smarter than the other boys. Further, Piggy’s glasses symbolize not only his intelligence but human ingenuity more broadly through their ability to create fire.

However, Piggy is tellingly marginalized by the other boys from the very start. He remains a social outcast until his assassination. And his glasses ultimately spark conflict, as Jack steals the symbol of Piggy’s intelligence for his own ends. In an era of nuclear warfare, perhaps the novel’s skepticism about the role of intelligence in countering ignorance or securing morality is unsurprising. Within the world of the island, intelligence is martialed for the use of those in power. Or, it is eliminated when it becomes inconvenient to them.

Lord of the Flies Analysis—Genre and Satire

Lord of the Flies harkens back to Robinson Crusoe, one of the very first novels in English. Robinson Crusoe concerns the story of a sailor stranded on an island that he makes home. Massively successful, Robinson Crusoe has inspired countless stories about desert island adventures. For example, Swiss Family Robinson or even Tom Hanks in Castaway . Critics have grouped all these stories into a single genre called the “Robinsonade.” But unlike other, earlier examples of this genre, Lord of the Flies is a Robinsonade that is distinctly darker and more cynical in tone. This aspect, along with the fact that it directly references nineteenth-century texts of the same genre, helps us see how Lord of the Flies works as a satire of the Robinsonade.

When the naval officer assumes the boys had a wholesome adventure on the island, it is important that he uses The Coral Island as a reference point. The Coral Island was a popular boys’ adventure novel published by R. M. Ballantyne in 1857 and is a key intertext for Lord of the Flies . Not only is this Robinsonade mentioned at least twice in the novel, but it is most likely the source for the names of Golding’s main characters.

Analysis (Continued)

Ballantyne’s book concerns a trio of boys named Ralph, Jack, and Peterkin who are shipwrecked on a small island. Arguably the models for Ralph, Jack, and Piggy in Lord of the Flies , Ballantyne’s characters play games, look for treasure, and successfully fend off threatening “cannibals” (Indigenous islanders). Lord of the Flies effectively rewrites this narrative, removing any non-English characters and capturing a very different situation in which the English boys descend into chaos and violence.

Novels like The Coral Island and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (also referenced in Golding’s book) were part of a wave of imperial adventure fiction for boys in the previous century. In stories of exotic travel and conflict with “primitives,” these types of stories were important in shaping and reflecting notions of English cultural and military superiority. In other words, they are the perfect target for satire in Lord of the Flies . The novel upends the formula of these earlier books, but it also carefully shows how its characters have been raised in this literary tradition. The only flashback in the novel focuses on Ralph’s memory of his beloved books for boys in the library of his father’s cottage.

Lord of the Flies Analysis (Continued)

Through referencing this earlier tradition, Lord of the Flies examines the power of narrative to create broadly appealing myths. But it also traces the harm these myths can have on those raised with them. It takes the English chauvinism and jingoism of books like The Coral Island and turns it sour. Ultimately, the novel shows how it has poisoned the minds of its boy characters.

Lord of the Flies is justly celebrated for its innovation within the Robinsonade genre. It mirrors a wider tendency in twentieth-century fiction to upend generic expectations by incorporating a dark twist. The futurist utopian novels of the nineteenth century were mocked by the futurist dystopian novels of Huxley and Orwell. And the rags-to-riches fables that were popular in nineteenth-century America gave way to deeply cynical novels about the American dream, like The Great Gatsby . However, the significance of Lord of the Flies is not purely literary. To close this analysis, I’ll next consider how Lord of the Flies was part of a wider project of reevaluating of British identity and recent history in the twentieth century.

Lord of the Flies Analysis—The Novel in Context

The most immediate context for Lord of the Flies is recent European history. The long but tenuous peace between European powers in the nineteenth century was ruptured by two successive world wars in the twentieth century. The world witnessed the terrible rise of fascist social and political movements in Germany and elsewhere. The Nuremberg trials, which helped unearth the full extent of Holocaust atrocities, took place only nine years before The Lord of the Flies was published. All this recent history undoubtedly informs the novel’s examination of fragile democracy overrun by power-hungry fascists.

Crucially, however, the novel is not explicitly about German Nazism. Instead, it centers on a seemingly normal group of English schoolboys. Young men who possess a fervent belief that being English means acting morally. As Jack puts it, “We’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything.” A central thrust of the novel involves turning this statement inside out. As the narrative progresses, Ralph regularly finds reason to call the other English boys “savages.” And when the English naval officer discovers the boys at the end, he is dismayed by their very un-English behavior and appearance. It is possible to read the novel as about a situation when English laws and norms have been suspended in the absence of adult supervision. But the palpable irony of statements like Jack’s suggests that faith in Englishness as a guarantor of cultural or moral superiority is mislaid.

The Novel in Context (Continued)

Through this mode of irony, Golding satirizes beliefs in innate English civility. During the nineteenth century, Britain’s vast territorial empire corresponded to a self-confident mentality that British or English ways are the best ways. Frequently, English culture was compared favorably with that of “savage” cultures. These cultures were thought to occupy a less advanced stage of civilizational development. But in the twentieth century, the rapid diminishment of Britain’s empire corresponded to a sudden loss of that self-confidence. And as more of Britain’s colonies seized independence, doubts about the morality of the British imperial enterprise seeped in.

Just three years before Lord of the Flies was published, the theorist and historian Hannah Arendt was investigating how the British empire was implicated in the origins of twentieth-century authoritarianism. As Anne Applebaum of The Atlantic explains , Arendt sought to explain the rise of Nazism by returning “not only to the history of the Jews in Germany but also to the history of European racism and imperialism.” Even though Britain fought against German fascism, Arendt traces how British history was nonetheless implicated in its emergence.

Correspondingly, Lord of the Flies’ focus on authoritarian politics and its satire of British self-confidence are very much related. The novel ridicules the idea that morality or civility can stem from English cultural nationalism. It also satirizes outlandish fantasies of imperial adventure. Notably, Jack’s choir should represent the Church as the ultimate source of British imperial civility. But of course, the same group becomes a craven band of murderers. Most importantly, the novel’s ironic ending revolves around a contrast between what the British expect of themselves and the horrors that have unfolded. Arriving as the sun was close to setting on the British empire, Lord of the Flies offers a bleak post-mortem of British imperial self-confidence.

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Tyler Talbott

Tyler holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Missouri and two Master of Arts degrees in English, one from the University of Maryland and another from Northwestern University. Currently, he is a PhD candidate in English at Northwestern University, where he also works as a graduate writing fellow.

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• Lord of the Flies

Read below our complete notes on the novel “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding. Our notes cover  Lord of the Flies summary, themes, characters, and analysis.

Introduction

Lord of the Flies is written by William Golding who is a Nobel Prize-winning author and is published in 1954.  This novel investigates the darker side of humankind; the viciousness that underlies even the most civilized and cultivated people.

William Golding proposed this novel as a satiric tale of adventure of children, delineating mankind’s inborn evil nature. He presents the audience with a sequence of occasions driving a gathering of little fellows from hope to catastrophe as they endeavor to endure their graceless, segregated condition until saved. It is listed in the Modern Library of 100 Best Novels.

Lord of the Flies is a short story by William Golding about a group of boys who get caught on an island because of the crashing of a plane. Ralph and Piggy are the ones who meet initially.

Then Ralph blows a conch shell that produces a horn-like sound, brings numerous surviving boys young men come running and they all consent to remain together and make Ralph their pioneer. They all stroll around the island gathering food and making a sanctuary when Ralph and Jack get into a dispute about the initiative and the monster they have been scanning for this entire time.

At that point, they split up into two gatherings and have a gigantic battle toward the end that truly executes Piggy in light of a freestone hitting him. At last, all the boys all get saved by an official of the Navy who sees the smoke from the enormous fire on the island.

Setting of the Novel

The setting of the novel is an uninhabited island where a plane carrying a number of children crashes. this novel becomes a representative depiction of the Earth, where Humans develop civilizations, the group of the boys in the leadership of Ralph, which are then destructed by the humans themselves, Jack and his hunters destroy, this results in the creation of new nations, Ralph leads one group while Jack leads the other, then wars take place and it makes the people believe in new religious faiths as the boys on the island start believing in the Lord of the Flies.

Context of the Novel

World War II impacted the subjects and setting of this novel. The war changed the lens through which individuals in general and William Golding specifically saw the world. World War I was for a long time called the War to End All Wars. World War II refuted that thought and made another feeling that individuals are ingrained with warlike traits, power-hungry, and savage. While the setting of the novel is not of World War II, it very well may be seen as Golding’s variant of World War III. Just a couple of brief references to the war outside the young boys on the island show up in the novel, however, references to a nuclear bomb exploding an air terminal and the “Reds” clarify that the war includes atomic weapons and “Reds.”

Lord of the Flies Summary

A boy of twelve-years comes out of the plane on an island. When he comes out of the wrecked plane, he sees another fat boy who is wearing glasses. The former is Ralph while the latter is Piggy. This is Piggy’s nickname and does not like this name but Ralph decides to call him Piggy despite his protests. The readers come to know that the boys have nearly escaped death in a plane crash and the island where they have survived is somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.  These boys reveal that they have been flying from their home country because of the fear of atomic war.

They think that the whole world has died in the atomic war and they might have to live on the island without the intervention of the adults. Ralph starts swimming in the water and Piggy tells him about his background that his parents are dead and he lives with his aunt who owns a candy shop. In the meanwhile, Piggy notices a conch shell and retrieves it with the help of Ralph. He tells Ralph that it can be very useful for them while living on the island.

Piggy tells Ralph how to produce sound through the shell and to the surprise of the boys, after two sounds of the conch shell, other survivors start to come towards them. These include Eric and Sam, who are twins, Jack who is the head of a group of boys. The group of Jack is wearing strange caps and cloaks of black color. Jack informs Ralph that he is the leader of this group.

 Jack wants to lead the group for survivors but through the votes, Ralph is elected as chief of the group.  Ralph then decides to take along Jack and Samson to explore the island and find some food. Piggy wants to go with them but Jack humiliates Piggy.

In the evening, there is a meeting of the boys and Ralph tells the boys that they are on an island and there is no human being other than the group. Jack, Ralph and Simon inform them about their exploration of the journey in the morning. Then they establish the rules of the meetings and day to day activities.

They decide that they will have fun until the grown-ups from the outside world to rescue them. In the meeting, a boy of six-years asks them what would the group do against snakes and other such animals. Ralph tells him that snakes are there in Africa and the island is not in Africa so nobody should be concerned about it. But Ralph notices the signs of fear on the faces of other boys, too. Ralph suggests building fire on the top of the mountain so that it could signal to the world and they could be saved from the island. Jack gathers his group to build fire.

The boys gather the wood and about to start the fire but they do not know how to ignite the fire. Piggy suggests that his glasses might be used for starting a fire. The boys lit the fire but it finished soon. They are all sad about it. Anyhow, they start the fire once again. Then they decide to make some shelters for living as well. The boys again see a snake and Piggy notices that one of the boys is missing.

Jack looks to hunt some pigs. The appearance of Jack shows that it has been a long time that the boys are on the island. He gets frightened by the pigs and returns back to the group. Ralph tells Jack that the boys are not working properly and that the boys are spending their time swimming. Jack tells him that he should act as a leader and order all the boys to work harder otherwise they all will end up in death. Ralph tells Jack that he must bring some meat for the boys but Jack tells him that the boys are not good hunters and he himself has to do all the work. He vows again to hunt down a pig.

They both argue about the contribution to the living of the boys when Simon comes and tells them that the little boys are frightened because of the snakes. Ralph advises Jack that he must keep the fire in his view while hunting in the forest. Both of them go and look at the fire whether the fire is strong enough to be seen from a faraway distance or not. They return and look for Simon but he is not found anywhere. Afterwards, both boys go swimming.

Simon goes into the jungle alone and catches some fruits for the little boys and then spends some time in the jungle until the dawn appears.

The boys get adjusted to the way of life on the island. The atmosphere is usually hot in the day and cool in the night but the boys adjust to the weather. The littluns group of the boys who are the youngest search for food throughout the day. They are the ones who suffer a lot from diarrhea. They also are very much afraid of the animals. They believe that some of the boys are eaten by these animals in the darkness of the nights.

Jack is disappointed with his failure as a hunter. He thinks that the animals watch him so that is the reason he is unable to hunt them down. Resultantly, Jack rubs charcoal over his face and makes it is a sort of mask which he thinks would hide him from the animals.

One day, they see a ship passing through the water but it is very distant and they can see the signal of fire in the ship. Ralph tells them that their own fire is weak enough to give the ship the signal. Ralph runs to the mountain but the ship passes without seeing them. Ralph blames all those who are responsible for this weak fire.

In meanwhile, Jack and his hunter group return from the forest and they carry a bid dead big. Piggy is upset because they have lost the opportunity. He blames Jack and both of them argue. Jack punches Piggy during which one of the lenses of Piggy’s glasses breaks down. He then apologizes to Piggy.

Ralph is not happy with the situation going into the forest. Thus he calls for a meeting to make some important decisions. He warns all of the boys that they are not making serious hard work and it can turn out to be disastrous for them. Ralph blames them as they have not built the shelters correctly and also the fire is on a weaker side which can seriously reduce their chances of escape. He also assures the group there are no monsters on the island.

Jack stands up and curses the small boys for being afraid of the animals and he makes them believe that there is no beast on the island. One of the boys tells them that he has been able to see a pig near the shelters. Jack dismissed them but Simon also approves the notion of the small boy that he has also seen the pig near the shelter. Jack taunts Piggy and they both start a fight. Ralph stops them and tells them they must follow the rules. Jack asks him who cares about the rules. Jack vows to kill the beast and breaks the assembly by going for a hunt.

Ralph thinks that if this time Jack does not come for the meeting so their union would be broken and he would become a savage animal. Piggy tells Ralph that he should not step down from the leadership because if Jack becomes the leader he would only hunt and they might not be able to return forever.

That night, there is an aerial war and there are sounds of explosions. This results in a dead pilot who lands on the top of a mountain on the island. The boys on the duty find a dead body in the morning. They awake Ralph and tell him about the beast. The meeting is called once again and they all argue about the existence of the beast.

Ralph wants to spend some time in solitude and he goes into the undiscovered path of the island. He enjoys the mountains and caves in that part of the island. He soon gets frustrated because the firs, he thinks, is not strong to signal to the ship. He goes back to strengthen the fire. He wants the group to be rescued from the island while on the other hand, Jack thinks that they can build a fort on the island and stay there on the island.

The boys search and continue their hunt. Ralph sees his appearance and thinks that he has totally changed and looks very dirty. The boys go to the opposite side of the island. This spot is exactly the opposite of the place where the boys have shelters. The view of the island and the sea is totally different here. Ralph loses hope of return but Simon assures him that he would eventually leave the island and reach their homes.

In the afternoon, they discover the droppings of the pig. Jack asks the boy if they need to continue the search for the beast but if they find the pig it can additionally be hunted down. Ralph is new in hunting and it excites him.

A boar appears and they start to shoot it down. Jack`s left forearm gets wounded. They chant and continue their search but soon they realize that this might prove dangerous for them. Ralph considers that the boys are getting savage and violent.

In the evening, the boys go to the mountain for the fire but Ralph is pessimistic about his return. Jack wants to go to the beach for hunting but Ralph is not interested because he thinks that leaving the small boys with Piggy is not secure and that the light is very dim, too. Ralph senses that Jack hates him and he asks him the reason for hate but Jack has no answer.

Jack again vows that he is going to kill the beast. He then mocks Ralph that he is not accompanying Jack in the hunt. Jack then sees something on the top of the mountain and feels frightened. Ralph agrees to join him. They see an ape sleeping. When the boys get to know this, they are terribly frightened.

In the morning, the boys discuss the event of the night. Jack assures the boys that he can kill the beast with his hunter group. Ralph dismisses the idea because he thinks that it is dangerous to hunt down such a big beast. Jack asks the boys that Ralph considers them coward. Jack also blames that Ralph is not a proper chief because he is very cowardly. Jack asks the boys they must expel Ralph from the leadership of the group but no one agrees with the idea of Jack. Jack then announces that he is going to leave the group of Ralph and he goes away.

Piggy suggests that they should make another area for the fire which could be visible. They then locate a place near the beach for fire. Ralph notices that some of the boys are missing. Simon is also missing but he is gone to an isolated place. Piggy thinks that they can do well without Jack but they need to use their common sense.

On the other side, Jack announces himself as the leader of the hunters. He decides to kill the pig to have a good feast. They find a group of pigs and kill one among them. They leave the head of the pig as a gift for the beast. Simon sees the flies buzzing around the head of the pig from his private place.

Ralph thinks that the boys should be rescued soon otherwise they all will end up dying on the island.

Jack then comes to Ralph and tells the boys to join the group of hunters because they have feast and fun.

  Chapter 9

Simon falls asleep in his private place. When he wakes up he is confused as to what to do. He also catches sight of a beast on the mountain. Simon sees that the beast has a head of man, this causes him to vomit. He then goes to Ralph to tell the boys what he has seen.

Ralph and Piggy play in the lagoon and feel that all the boys have a good time to enjoy the feast of Jack.  They decide to go to the boys and tell them that things are in control and they would be rescued soon.

They reach the place and see that all the boys are enjoying the feast, while Jack is their leader. Jack sees Piggy and Ralph and orders the boys to offer them sow to eat. After the feast, Jack asks the boys to join his tribe and most of the boys go into Jack’s tribe. Ralph gets disappointed with the scene. Ralph tries to convince the boys but Jack starts arguments with him again.

Piggy asks Ralph to leave because things are getting serious in between Ralph and Jack. Ralph tells the boys that rain is around the corner and they are not prepared for the shelter. However, the boys get engaged in the dance party. Simon comes to tell them about the parachutist but the boys are mad at dancing and they chase Simon and beat him to death.

The rain intensifies and the boys are forced to run towards the shelter. Meanwhile, the dead boys of the parachutist fly in the air because of the fast wind. The boys get more terrified. They believe that it is the beast.

Ralph is angry over the death of Simon. Piggy tells him that he participated in the death of Simon because he behaved violently and he died accidently. But Ralph is broken over the death.

They think that all the boys except Sam and Eric have left for Jack’s tribe.

Four of them discuss the events of last night but they try to avoid the subject of Simon’s death. Roger, at the other, tries to enter the camp of Jack. Once he enters the camp, he sees that Jack`s behavior has turned violent and savage.

On the other hand, Ralph and his three companions try to start a fire again but because they are little in number the job seems difficult for them. The night falls and they go to their shelter.

The boys do not sleep well because they are afraid. They hear some sounds and notice that Jack along with his boys is attacking their shelters. They suffer injuries and Piggy tells them the boys came for the glasses of piggy.

The boys gather wounded and injured. They try to start a fire again but they do not have the glasses of Piggy so it is impossible for them. They need the glasses because it is the only hope for fire and their rescue. Piggy decides to go to Jack and appeals to his justice so that he could return glasses. He also wants to tell Jack that he must behave wisely and that he should wear clothes.

They reach Jack’s camp but the guards of Jack’s camp throw stones at them and ask them to leave. Jack appears with his group carrying a large dead pig. Ralph asks him that he must return the glasses of Piggy. Ralph calls him a thief and Jack attacks to stab Ralph but he saves himself.

Both the boys fight. Ralph tells him that fire is their only hope for survival and the glasses should be returned. Jack orders his boys that they should tie Sam and Eric. The boys hold them and tie them up. Ralph and Jack again fight and Ralph calls Jack a swine. Piggy shouts and tells him that he wants to talk to all the boys. He tells the boys whether they want to be like savage Indians or to behave like humans and try to be like Ralph. He adds that they should live in accordance with the rules rather than only kill and feast. He tells them the rules of Ralph are for their rescue. Suddenly, a rock falls from the mountain over Piggy and he is crushed by the rock.

The group is silent but Jack attacks Ralph and he runs away to save himself.

Ralph runs and hides in the jungle. He is very concerned about the barbaric behavior of the boys. He also thinks that the boy might not be able to come into civilization. He decides to fight because he thinks that Jack would not leave him alive.

Suddenly Ralph notices the fire and realizes that Jack has set the jungle on fire to find Ralph. Ralph is worried because he thinks that this is going to destroy all the fruit on the island.  He runs to the beach and notices that the hunters are after him. He is terrified and senses that the hunters are very close to him.

Ralph reaches the beach and falls over with terror. He then sees a naval officer looming over him. He tells him that his ship noticed smoke so they decided to investigate the matter. The boys run and chase Ralph and the officer slowly gets to know the violent nature of the boys. The boys try to tell the officer their names but they no longer remember their addresses. They do not know how many boys are there on the island. The officer scolds them for going away from civilization by behaving savagely.

Ralph realizes that their innocence is dead and there is darkness in their hearts.

Themes in Lord of the Flies

The repercussions of the war.

Lord of the Flies is to some extent a moral story of the Cold War. It is about the negative impacts of war on the life of people and for social connections. This novel is written in the era of the Cold War and it reflects the threat of the atomic war between Britain and “the Reds.” Golding along these lines presents the peaceful strains as coming full circle into a deadly clash in his novel against the perils of ideology, or “cold,” fighting.  

In addition, we may comprehend the contention among the young men on the island is a representation of the contention between the Communist forces and the Western Democratic Powers. Ralph, who stands for a democratic system, has a conflict with Jack, who symbolizes military tyranny, for example, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. J ack is wearing a dark cape with blazing red hair, and this symbolizes his connection to the “Reds” because the main color of the Reds was black and red. As the strain between the young men goes to a wicked head, the readers see the hazardous results of an ideological clash.

The appearance of the maritime official towards the end of the story underscores these metaphorical focuses. The official epitomizes war, and this connects him to the fierce Jack. The official is English and in this manner connected to the popularity based side of the Cold War, which the novel eagerly shields. The ramifications of the official’s quality are provocative: Golding proposes that even a war pursued the sake of development can lessen mankind to a condition of savageness. A definitive scene of the novel, wherein the young men sob with melancholy for the loss of their blamelessness, involves contemporary readers in the young men’s disaster. The young boys show the wartime driving forces of the period.

Man versus Nature

Lord of the Flies presents the subject of man’s optimal relationship with this world. The novel is set in the natural habitat of the island, in which there are no people before the group of the boys, the boys expound various mentalities towards nature that mirror their particular characters and ideological understandings. The boys` connections to the normal world, for the most part, can be categorized as one of three classifications: enslavement of nature, congruity with nature, and subservience to nature.

The primary class which is an oppression of nature is typified by Jack, whose motivation on the island is to track, chase, and murder pigs. He tries to force his human will on the world of nature, enslaving it according to his wants. Jack’s later activities, specifically setting the jungle on fire, mirror his extending scorn for nature and exhibit his violent and savage character.

The subsequent class is harmonious with nature and is typified by Simon. He discovers excellence and harmony in the common habitat as exemplified by his underlying retreat to the place of seclusion in the jungle. For Simon, nature isn’t man’s adversary however it is a part of the experience of man.

The third classification is obedience to nature and it is encapsulated by Ralph. He takes the contrary position from Jack’s stance. In contrast to Simon, Ralph doesn’t discover serene amiability with the world of nature like Jack. He comprehends it as an impediment to human life on the island.

 However, while Jack reacts to this apparent clash by acting damagingly towards animals on the island and vegetation, Ralph reacts by withdrawing from the common world. He doesn’t take an interest in chasing or in Simon’s outings to the woods. He remains on the seashore, the most refined piece of the island. As Jack’s chasing communicates his vicious nature to different readers, Ralph’s craving to remain separate from the world of nature stresses his hesitancy to entice risk and his liking for human advancement.

Savagery as an opposite to Civilization

One of the main themes of Lord of the Flies is the contention between the human motivation towards brutality and the principles of progress which are intended to contain and limit it. All through the novel, the contention is sensationalized by the conflict between Jack and Ralph. These characters portray savagery and civilization, respectively. 

The varying philosophies are communicated by the perspective power of every boy towards power and authority. While Ralph utilizes his position to set up rules, he ensures that the group is going to be beneficial and incorporates the good and moral codes of the English society in the young boys but Jack is keen on picking up control over different young men to satisfy his basic instinctive forces. 

At the point when Jack starts leading the hunters and then the tribe, he asks for the total subservience of all the young boys, who serve him as well as love him as a leader. Jack’s craving for power proposes that viciousness doesn’t look like rebellion to such an extent as an authoritarian arrangement of misuse and unlawful force.

Golding’s focus on the repercussion of brutality can be taken as opposite to the civilization of humans. In the initial parts of the novel, he proposes that one of the significant elements of a society that is civilized and cultures is to give an outlet to the savage driving forces that dwell inside every person. 

Jack’s underlying want to slaughter pigs to exhibit his boldness, for instance, is directed into the chase, which gives required nourishment to the whole gathering. For whatever length of time that he lives inside the standards of human progress, Jack isn’t a risk to different boys of the group. His driving forces are being re-coordinated into a beneficial assignment. When Jack does not acknowledge the legitimacy of society and rejects Ralph’s position brings out the perilous parts of his character. Golding recommends that while brutality is maybe an inevitable certainty of human presence, civilization can relieve its dangers.

The conflict between Jack and Ralph that stands for Savagery and Civilization is imparted through the novel’s significant images. The conch shell is related to Ralph, and The Lord of the Flies is related to Jack. The conch shell is an incredible marker of democratic system on the island, affirming both Ralph’s authority controlled by the political decision and the intensity of collecting the boys into a group. However, as the contention between Jack and Ralph extends, the conch shell loses representative significance. 

Jack proclaims that the conch is good for nothing as an image of power and request, and its decrease in significance flags the decay of human advancement on the island. Simultaneously, The Lord of the Flies, which is a contribution to the legendary brute on the island, is progressively contributed with noteworthiness as an image of the predominance of viciousness on the island, and of Jack’s position over different young men. 

The Lord of the Flies symbolizes the unification of the young men under Jack’s leadership which is advocated through fear and punishment for those who do not approve his orders. The obliteration of the conch shell at the location of Piggy’s killing implies the total destruction of human civilization on the island, while Ralph’s destruction of The Lord of the Flies portrays his own plunge into viciousness and savagery. By the last scene, brutality has totally dislodged human progress as the overarching framework on the island.

Loss of Innocence

The young boys on the island turn from polite and well-mannered boys to savage hunters on the island. During this transformation from good kids to cruel kids, they all lose their innocence of characters and morality which they all are filled with, at the start of the novel.  The naked boys with painted faces representing extreme savagery in the final portion of the novel are not the same boys who can be found in the early part of the novel. 

They now search, torture and hunt not only animals but human beings as well. In any case, Golding doesn’t depict this loss of innocence as something that is done to these boys on the island; rather, it results normally from their expanding receptiveness to the intrinsic insidiousness and viciousness that has consistently existed inside them. Golding infers that civilization can moderate however never clear out the inborn evil that exists inside every individual. 

The den in the jungle in chapter 3 wherein Simon sits in symbolizes this going away of innocence. From the outset, it is a position of common excellence and harmony, however, when Simon returns later in the novel, he finds the grisly sow’s head pierced upon a stake in the clearing. The bleeding offering to the brute has upset the heaven that existed previously which is an incredible image of natural human shrewdness upsetting the innocence of youth.

Lord of the Flies Characters Analysis

He is the hero of the story. He is one of the oldest boys who survive a plane crash to live on the island. He is elected as the leader of the group because of his skills.  He has a good sense of authority. He is described as a handsome boy with a good height.  He is a rational mental aptitude with a calm demeanor but he is unable to meet the intellectual level of Piggy. He tries to stop himself from savage life on the island as the other boys turn into savagery and violence but slowly and gradually he moves into the life of savage brutality. The interesting feature of his personality is that he remains civilized and is focused on the safe return of his group to his native land.

In the initial section of the novel, Ralph can’t comprehend why young boys get inclined to the impulses of brutality. Seeing the hunters reciting and moving is confusing to him. He dislikes all of these activities. As the novel advances, Ralph comes to comprehend that viciousness exists inside all the young men. Ralph stays committed not to let this viciousness overpower him, and just quickly does he consider joining Jack’s clan so as to spare himself. 

When Ralph chases a pig for the first time with Jack he encounters the elation and rush of bloodlust and savagery. At the point when he goes to Jack’s celebratory feast, he gets mad, dances and takes an active part in Simon’s killing along with the other boys. This firsthand information of evil that exists inside him, as inside every single individual, is deplorable for Ralph, and it drives him into depression for a period. But this information empowers him to cast down the Lord of the Flies toward the last part of the novel. Ralph’s story closes semi-disastrously, in spite of the fact that he is safeguarded and comes back to development when he sees the maritime official, he sobs with the weight of his new information about the human limit with regards to violence and savagery.

He is among the survivors of the plane crash. He makes a good bond with Ralph who becomes the leader of the group of boys. He is not able to do physical labor because he suffers from asthma but he is the only boy who has a higher level of intelligence and perception. The group of boys accepts him because he gives them the idea that they can ignite fire with his glasses. He is a true depiction of civilization and wants the boys to behave in a civilized manner. 

He helps Ralph to rescue the boys from the savagery of the island and to return to their respective homes. He is a very sensitive boy. His nickname Piggy makes a strong connection between him and the pigs on the island because the pigs are constantly hunted down by Jack and his team. This foreshadows the death of Piggy as well towards the end of the novel.

Piggy is the main kid who stresses over the principles of English human civilization; in particular what the adults will think when they locate the savage young men. Piggy has confidence in rules, practicality, and request, and as the island slips into ruthless savagery, Piggy’s position goes under risk of extreme savagery.

Piggy’s freedom and keenness keep him from being completely consumed by the gathering, so he isn’t as vulnerable to the crowd mindset that surpasses a significant number of different young men. As Ralph, Piggy can’t maintain a strategic distance from the allurements of brutality on the island. 

The next morning of the party, Ralph and Piggy both confess to taking some part in the assault and murder of Simon. While Piggy attempts to persuade himself that Simon’s death was a mishap, his investment proposes that his readiness to be acknowledged by the gathering drove him to sell out his own ethics and better judgment. 

The death of Piggy recommends that intellectualism is helpless against savagery. The death of Simon can be seen as a mishap or a heightening of crowd attitude, the death of Piggy is the most purposeful and unavoidable event on the island which marks the group of boys completely falling into the clutches of brutality and savagery.

Jack Merridew

He is called by the nickname of Jack. He is the leader of some boys who make choir. He is a dictator and authoritarian. He is brutal and cruel. He is also a sadist. His only work is to kill the pigs by hunting them on the island. He displays a political struggle to become the leader of the group of boys and when he finally announces himself the leader, he starts to show his mercilessness. He loves to punish and it is innate in his nature. He is a presentation of Anarchy. This is clearly shown when he tries to reject the system of order implemented by Ralph.

The egomaniacal and strongly committed Jack is the novel representation of the nature of brutality, savagery, and the craving for power.  From the earliest point of the novel, Jack wants power over every single other thing. He is irate when he loses the political race to Ralph and consistently pushes the limits of his subordinate job in the gathering. 

At an early stage, Jack holds the feeling of good respectability and conducts that society imparted in him because he is the pioneer of the choirboys. On the first occasion when he experiences a pig, he can’t slaughter it. However, Jack before long gets fixated on chasing and gives himself to the undertaking, painting his face like a savage and indulging himself in blood games of killing. The more savage Jack turns into, the more he can control the remainder of the gathering. 

In fact, aside from Ralph, Simon, and Piggy, the gathering to a great extent follows Jack in grasping brutality and viciousness. Jack’s adoration for power and viciousness are personally associated, as both empower him to feel amazing and magnified. Before the last section of the novel, Jack figures out how to utilize the young men’s dread of the brute to control their conduct.

Sam and Eric

Sam and Eric are identical twins. Towards the end of the novel, they remain with Piggy and Ralph. They help both the characters to start the fire so that they could be rescued by someone passing through the island. They are considered as one individual and therefore Golding presents them as Sam’n’eric.

He belongs to a group of hunters. He then becomes a guard at the castle rock when Jack makes his own tribe. He is equal in cruelty with Jack. He is very crude. He usually throws sand at other boys. His savagery turns out in a real essence when he joins the group of hunters. He also murders Piggy towards the end of the novel.

The hunter group when tries to kill the pig, would chant kill the pig and Maurice would become a pig- a feigned pig and the hunter group would pretend to slaughter Maurice. He is an intermediate sort of character who represents the mass that is mindless.

He is the smallest of the boys on the island. He usually murmurs his names and address so that he could give himself comfort that he would return to his home one day. He is a little kid and gets frightened very easily. Throughout the cross of the novel, his fear increases and older boys have to soothe him. He belongs to a domestic aspect of civilization.

Naval Officer

He comes towards the end of the novel. He meets Ralph when Ralph runs away from the boys of Jack to save himself. The novel officer tells him that he saw the smoke coming from the island so he came in to investigate the matter. It is the smoke of the fire which Jack ignites in order to see the location of Ralph. This fire takes the whole jungle. He makes the boys believe that they have come away from civilization and are primitive.

He is the most introspective of all the characters present in the novel. He loves nature which urges him to walk in the forest and enjoy seclusion. Simon stands for the symbolic representation of spirituality in the nature of humans. He is outcast like Piggy and the group of boys considers him an odd boy. 

He is the first boy in the group who sees the beast. But later, he recognizes that the beast is the dead body of the pilot of the plane. He then decides to tell it the boys but the boys in frenzy kill him. He is shown to be a figure of Christianity and his death is portrayed as martyrdom. His spirituality is also portrayed by the fact that his name means a person who has been heard by God. He stands a pivotal character in this Judeo-Christian allegory.

Lord of the Flies Analysis

The allegory of the title.

The novel serves as an allegory for the instinctive nature of humans and society. This novel presents the mythology of Judaism and Christianity to explain the political and sociological perspectives. The title has two implications and both the meanings have religious connotations. 

The first meaning refers to one of the lines of King Lear by Shakespeare, “As flies to wanton boys, are we to gods.” The meaning refers to the Beelzebub whose Greek name is Ba`alzevuv meaning “Lord of the Flies” and it is simply used for Satan. For Golding, the evil powers that constrain the stunning occasions on the island originate from inside the human mind and not from the external impulses. Golding accordingly utilizes a strict reference to delineate a Freudian idea of the Id that drags the humans for survival regardless of ethical and moral implications. For Freud, this Id is usually negative and it drags humans for its goals without considering the circumstances.

Lord of the Flies and Cold War

This novel was published in 1954 in the era of the Cold War.  The novel has a strong base in concerns in sociopolitical aspects of the era. This novel implies the Cold War struggle between liberal democratic countries and the rules system and Communist totalitarian governments. Ralph shows a liberal convention of democracy and before his taking up the total anarchic rule of leadership, Jack, portrays the military autocracy that remains in the communist systems. It is eminent that Golding sets the novel in what gives off an impression of reality of the human future. 

He represents the future which is in danger because of the atomic war threat. Golding’s novel talks about the general fear of the public relating to the race of atom bombs in the Cold War era because this race remained in vogue in the era in which this novel got published. Golding’s negative portrayal of Jack, who speaks to an enemy of majority rule political framework, and his recommendation of the truth of nuclear war, present the novel as a motion of help for the Western situation vulnerable War.

Significance of the Conch

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding utilizes a conch shell to symbolize a civilized and an enlightened society that controls itself through the system of democracy. At first, the young men utilize the conch to build up a community suggestive of their commonplace British order of society. Soon after the conch is found, Ralph utilizes it to bring different young boys on the island and assemble a conference. The shell’s capacity is obvious, and the young boys promptly grasp the possibility of a majority rules system. After investigating the island, Ralph announces the young men will lift their hands in gatherings, as at school, if any of them want to talk. When holding the conch every kid gets the option to communicate his considerations without interference. 

The young boys` underlying energy for the process of democracy procedure permeates the conch with incredible force as a method of correspondence, as the young men singularly concur that the conch symbolizes a commonplace and beneficial perfect.

The conch is an image of free discourse and a common procedure that every kid understands easily. However, the ideas themselves demonstrate progressively hard to stick to in practical speaking, and soon the conch’s capacity finishes as the young men oppose the requirements of the vote based procedure. Ralph is disappointed that the gatherings he utilizes the conch to collect don’t really achieve a lot. 

While the young boys consent to his arrangements for their general public on a fundamental level, the guidelines are difficult to authorize, since there are no ramifications for rebellion. Jack recommends a substitute type of administration and says that they needn’t bother with the conch any longer because they are going to talk. This presents the possibility of despotism or a civilization of humans where residents don’t share power similarly. In contrast to a democratic system which chips away at the premise of deliberate anticipation, authoritarian government, or autocracy, brutally rebuffs insubordination. Thus the conch in the novel portrays the restrictions of authorizing democracy just as the chance vote based system represents.

The Conceptualized meaning of “The Beast”

Golding utilizes the fear of boys from the beast to show that evil emerges from outer powers as opposed to within the human beings. This fearsome brute captures the imaginations of the boys as a snake-type creature.Later, the boys think about an animal that ascents from the ocean or the more indistinct element of an apparition. At the point when they detect the dead paratrooper who has arrived on the mountain, the boys get assured that they have seen the beast and its proofs are there on the mountain. Although a real beast roams around on the island but is not the beast the boys have in their imagination.

Golding outlines the darker side of human instinct and mentions that every individual possesses this dark person inside him. The young boys conceptualize the origin of all their evilness as because of a beast. But in reality, there is no beast on the island, rather it is the persona of the beast which these boys wear and becomes beasts to be brutal and violent.

Golding passes on the identity of the beast through the strict activities of Jack and his hunter group and through the dynamic idea which takes place in the vision of Simon. Simon’s disclosure about the beast happens upon him after he observes the death of the sow and then it’s beheading. Simon can understand the ruthlessness of the demonstration because he observes when this drama takes place. The flies capture the head of the sow to eat it and then duplicate themselves because they do not feel any sympathy towards the dead sow.  

This feeling of empathy is one of the main segregation lines between humans and animals.  Although Jack is a human being yet he lacks this feeling of sympathy for Piggy and other little boys on the island. Like Jack, his hunter group also loses this feeling of sympathy and they only look to kill the pigs and the boys who do not obey the orders of Jack.

At the point when Simon fantasizes that the staked head is addressing him, he believes that threat and danger are there on the island like other boys. The Lord of the Flies affirms that he is the part of every individual and he is close to all of them.

It is to note that the interpretation of the Greek word Beelzebub,  is the lord of Flies and it flies over the excrement and dead bodies.

Jack gives a depth to the identity of the beast when he reveals that the beast is indeed a hunter and he also conceptualizes that he himself is a beast as well because he threatens the boys and stands as a symbol of fear to the boys.  His desire for authority and power makes him do savage acts against his own group. The allegorical demon on his shoulder is his own animalistic instincts hoping to ace different animals.

Golding devolves the character of Jack with Simon’s illusory disclosure to illustrate the darker side of human beings which is the actual beast in the words of the boys of the group.

Some portion of Golding’s purpose is to exhibit that a particular country or state is not characterized by evil.  On the island, this beast in the novel is shown through dead pictures and things that show the power of lust. Preceding the war, a few of the boys, for example, the exploited Piggy, encounter the fierceness of others in the play area, and the irony is that the play area is specific for happiness and joyous activities. 

Inside every society which calls itself civilized, the beast appears in various ways: like military operational areas, like the conditions of madness which conveys negative repercussions. In Lord of the Flies Golding outlines that maliciousness and evil are there in everybody and all over the place.  Mankind’s work lies not in destroying it but to shield it from turning into the predominant power in our lives.

Ending of the Novel

Lord of the Flies closes with maritime officials showing up on the island. His initial perception of the boys is that they are engaged with pointless fooling around. At the point when he gets the details from Ralph what has occurred on the island, he is flabbergasted that children of Civilized British have gone to such a lower degree of humanity. Ralph and the young boys take his scolding and begin to weep that immediately become cries. They are crying over the loathsomeness of their experience and alleviation over coming back to human progress. As the young boys sob, the maritime official just watches out to the ocean to permit them to recover.

The maritime official does not understand the experience of the boys on the island. His not understanding what has occurred on the island reflects his own failure to perceive insidious inside himself and all humanity. At the point when he specifies playing around, the reader is snapped back to the real world. These are kids who ought to be guiltless and ought to mess around. Rather, they have become the truth in every last one of us – not unreasonably of guiltlessness, yet of evil.

Ironically the maritime official while seeming to portray Civilization and rationality of the society symbolizes evil which is inside the civilization as the boys have. He is a warrior who battles wars, which is positively human progress even from a pessimistic standpoint.

Lord of the Flies as an allegory for The Fall of Man from Eden

Lord of the Flies, metaphorically, portrays the subject of the contention between and good and evil. It is contention in which the evil gets its victory in the first phase and afterward, goodness comes to the surface and defeats the evil and sin. The boys in the novel symbolize bad or good characteristics. However, they are simultaneously fit for development. 

From the starting the bad and good are divided. Simon is loaded with human characteristics in addition to his education and spirituality. He brings great natural food for the littluns. He also gives credit to Piggy because he has been participating in every job and the making of fire is only possible because of Piggy. His instinct discloses to him that Ralph would endure towards the end. He is also very clear in his understanding that there is no brute outside and that evil exists in the brain of people.

The moaning of Ralph for losing innocence shows the subject of sin and appeasement. He accepts that he participated in the killing of Simon. He reveals to Piggy that the object which is killed on the mountain is much smaller than the beast so it could not be a beast. He also reveals that the dying object wanted to say something but it could not be heard because of the screams of the boys who were killing him. This shows that the voice of goodness is a distraught cry of frenzy, cruelty and superstition when Jesus is crucified. Later on, the individuals needed to appease their transgression inborn in them so as to be spared.

Simon can also be taken as a symbolic representation of Christ. He actually finds out that the beast is the dead body of the pilot. But he does not get the chance to utter this to the boys because he is brutally slaughtered by the boys who are in a frenzy. Critics are of the opinion that the death of Simon is a sacrifice and he is reference to Jesus.

Notwithstanding to the sacrifice of Simon the appeasement of Ralph for his transgression, there are other elements of Christianity in the novel as well. The most significant is the picture of Eden and its Garden and the dream of the Lord of the Flies. The island has all the highlights of the Eden. Golding in his novel suggests that when a person is encompassed by different sorts of solace and extravagance and without government and parental standards, it will prompt obliteration and defilement. Thus the young boys on the island have started to thwart everything and they even murder their companions.  

They also kill various pigs and put the head of the pig on a stick. The head of the sow on the stick is called the Lord of the Flies and it is a reference to Beelzebub who is also known as Lord of the Flies.

This head of the pig is a sacrifice to the beast by Jack. The metaphorical discussion between Simon, Jesus, and the Lord of the Flies is a reference to conflict of evil and good. The Lord of the Flies lures Simon requesting that he joins the group of Jack. At the point when Simon isn’t enticed, the Lord of the Flies scares him revealing to him that he would be slaughtered by Jack. 

For the Christian allurement and undermining are the two primary ways utilized by powers of evil to abscond goodness towards them. Satan enticed Adam and Eve to bring about the calamity for mankind. The scene that portrays Simon’s encounter with the Lord of the Flies resembles the scene in the Bible where Christ meets the fallen angel in the desert. The righteous people can’t be cheated rather they are killed by the abhorrent powers.

The religious element crafted by Golding, his indulgence of the Biblical subject of the breakdown of mankind, is observed by every critic and research. It can’t be dismissed that Golding’s major focus is the fall of man, and simultaneously, he communicates his anxiety for the conceivable way out of this fallen condition through the improvement of human emotions. That is the reason he does not care to be portrayed as a person who is a pessimist rather he wants to be known as a realist.

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