Lord of the Flies
LORD OF THE FLIES
As a child and adolescent, William Golding, like others in the innocent years before the War, had a fundamentally simple conception of the world. During the years before the massive cruelty, devastation, and destruction wrought by World War II, the prevailing concept of man and society included two basic viewpoints: man was essentially good and society was inherently evil. Golding's belief in this concept can be seen in his childhood reading choices, which included adventure stories like Tarzan of the Apes, Coral Island, and Twenty Thousand, as well as in Lord of the Flies. (enotes.http://www.enotes.com/flies/overview) The novel, published in 1954, is set at a time when Europe is in the midst of nuclear destruction. A group of boys, being evacuated from England to Australia, crash lands on a tropical island. No adults survive crash, and the boys, led by the slightly older and more mature boy, Ralph, are forced to fend for themselves and survive against both the island and each other. In order to create some sort of structure and governing system, Ralph decides that the group of boys should form a tribe, and that each person in the tribe has a specific role, that each must carry out, in order for the tribe to function correctly. However as the story progresses, the darker, brutal, and ruthless behaviors of human nature begin to surface in each of the boys, especially an older boy named Jack. The extreme striving and wanting of supreme power begins to surface in Jack, creating conflict between Ralph, who is trying to keep some sort of structured system, and Jack, who wants nothing more than to control all the boys on the island. Eventually the animalistic, ruthless, human nature-derived behaviors are almost always present in all but a few boys, however Jack and his newly founded tribe become jealous and angered at Ralph and the few remaining boys who stand by him, and soon the two groups become engage in a heated conflict. The story of The Lord Of The Flies explains to the reader human society is plagued by a lust for power and greed and needs structure, democratic government and education in order to avoid descent into chaos, disorder, and evil. Play The Lord of the Flies game at nobleprize.org |