Lord of the Flies

William Golding 1911-1993 Born in Cornwall, England Previous Jobs Theater actor and director Poet Schoolteacher Member of Royal Navy during WWII Commanded a rocket-launcher Participated in invasion of Normandy

Agree or Disagree-Why? When given a chance, people often single out and degrade another to improve themselves.   Society is what holds everyone together and without these conditions, our ideals, values, and the basics of right and wrong are lost.

Agree or Disagree-Why? When the institutions of law and order slip away or are ignored, human beings revert to a more primitive part of their nature. Everyone is capable of murder.  

What Is Evil? Consider these questions: Are people evil, or do they become evil? Are there degrees of evil? Are all people capable of doing evil? Are some more capable than others? Why? (exclude a genetic or chromosomal issue) Can there be good without evil?

Allegory a story with a symbolic level of meaning, where the characters and setting represent other things like political systems, religious figures, or philosophical viewpoints, etc.

Historical and Literary Context: Where Written: England When Published: 1954 Literary Period: Post-war fiction

Before the novel begins: When Lord of the Flies opens, a plane carrying a group of British boys ages 6 to 12 has crashed on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean. Also, apparently the world is at war. (This matters.) It is not WWII—more like a raging WWWIII with nukes.

With no adults around, the boys are left to fend for and govern themselves. The boys use a conch shell as a “talking stick,” and one of the older boys becomes "chief." Things start out okay. And then trouble begins…

QUOTES

Chapter 1 “’Aren't there any grownups at all?’ ‘I don't think so.’ The fair boy said this solemnly; but then the delight of a realized ambition overcame him. In the middle of the scar he stood on his head and grinned at the reversed fat boy. ‘No grownups!’” (Golding 8).

Chapter 2 “’He says he saw the beastie, the snake-thing, and will it come back tonight?’ ‘But there isn't a beastie!’ ‘He says in the morning it turned into them things like ropes in the trees and hung in the branches. He says will it come back again tonight?’ ‘But there isn't a beastie!’ There was no laughter at all now and more grave watching. Ralph pushed both hands through his hair and looked at the little boy in mixed amusement and exasperation.” (Golding 36)

Chapter 4 “His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink” (Golding 70). "Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Spill the blood!“ (Golding 69)

Chapter 5 “What I mean is... Maybe it's only us...”

Chapter 8 “There isn't anyone to help you. Only me. And I'm the Beast... Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!... You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you? Close, close, close! I'm the reason why it's no go? Why things are the way they are?” (Golding 143).

Chapter 12 “His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too. And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, 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” (Golding 202).

Allegory The island represents the whole world. Ralph's conch-led Parliament represents democratic government. (leadership/civilized society) Jack's tribalism represents autocratic government. (savagery/power) Piggy represents the forces of rationalism, science, and intellect—which get ignored at society's peril. (intellect/organizer) Simon represents a kind of natural morality. (insight/goodness)

Themes Golding believes that we cannot escape our savage, violent tendencies… and without social order, society dissolves into chaos and savagery.