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Lord of the Flies

By William Golding

(765)

| Others | 9780399501487

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Book Description

At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want. Anything.

But as order collapses, as strange howl Continue

Critics

William Golding: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies by John Carey

We hear a lot about the death of the author, but William Golding is an author who was almost still-born. The man who wrote Lord of the Flies found that no one wanted to publish it. In 1953, his manuscript spent seven months being sniffily perused by ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Fri, 24 Sep 2010

Adolescent angst from a tortured soul

Add to My Stories Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot remains, courtesy of Andrew Lloyd Webber, the most valuable book on the Faber and Faber backlist, but William Golding's Lord Of The Flies must run it a close second. The novel has so ... (read full critics)

dailymail published on Tue, 21 Sep 2010

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25 Reviews

3 people find this helpful

Very haunting.

A chilling example of what could happen were humanity left purely to its own defenses.

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Savedr said on Oct 7, 2007 | 1 feedback

2 people find this helpful

Allegory of human nature

The book is authored by William Golding who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983. It begins on a deserted island where a bunch of boys are stranded after a plane crash. Soon, Ralph emerges as a leader among them through a vote of hands. A fat smart kid nicknamed Piggy becomes his intellectual ... (continue)

The book is authored by William Golding who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983. It begins on a deserted island where a bunch of boys are stranded after a plane crash. Soon, Ralph emerges as a leader among them through a vote of hands. A fat smart kid nicknamed Piggy becomes his intellectual counsel. Together they think their situation over and decide that the boys need to keep a fire burning on the island so that they can be rescued by passing ships. Ralph also restores order by setting rules for discussion (using a white conch as the token), assigning boys to build shelters for resting and collecting food. But, there is a rebel in the midst named Jack who is jealous of Ralph's power. He prefers a dictatorial style of leadership. He soon starts drawing boys to his side by teaching them to hunt the pigs of the island for food. As the days go by, the chance of rescue wanes, Jack's power grows, Ralph loses support, the social order of the boys breaks down and the island slips into barbaric chaos.
On the surface, the book is a nice read of kids surviving on a deserted island. But, this is no book for kids. Below, it is a full blown allegory to the various forms of human nature, society, leadership and political formations. The boys start off with a system similar to democracy under Ralph. That slowly deteriorates to end up as dictatorship and brutality under Jack. This transition is in the exact opposite order of how humans evolved from cave dwelling brutes to civilized democracies. The last book I read with such a strong allegory was Life Of Pi. LOTF is a pretty small book and can be easily read in a day. This is an excellent read.

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Ashwin Nanjappa said on Jun 25, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

1 person find this helpful

The terrible disease of being human

During a plane crash a group of schoolboys fall in a desert island. They try to organize themselves in a civilization, and the most sensitive ones try to preserve wise rules and habits aimed to connect them to their origins and help them to come back. But it’s a difficult task, and without a grownup ... (continue)

During a plane crash a group of schoolboys fall in a desert island. They try to organize themselves in a civilization, and the most sensitive ones try to preserve wise rules and habits aimed to connect them to their origins and help them to come back. But it’s a difficult task, and without a grownup’s guide the children naturally tend to amuse themselves with the pleasures of the island forgetting what should be their first concern: keeping a fire lit to be rescued.
They gradually fall in a sort of entropy, feeling with time an uneasiness that takes in their imaginary the gloomy shape of a monster, that they start hunting in a confused, crepuscular state of mind in which borders between good and evil become ever more evanescent. Violent, animal drives take possession of few boys that then subdue most of the children, unconsciously dominated by the savage new leadership, while a few others oppose it and resist to the brutality with tragic consequences.
The symbol of these violent trends is a pig’s head, the Lord of the Flies, which will speak to Simon, the most intuitive boy, as follows: "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 what they are?" It’s a "false god" to be faced by the visionary Simon, child that the author in the afterworld interestingly defines as a "Christ figure". This charming monologue arises from what the author calls a "distortion" in the fable, that naturally happens when the writer is captured by the magical process of the narration so much as to become a spectator rather than an author, spectator of something that drives him to overcome the connection with the "moralized world", inherent in the parable but not in the novel, due to its length. The author wittily adds: "Fortunately the Lord of the Flies’ theology and mine were sufficiently alike to conceal the fact that I was writing at his dictation".
The story ends with the arrival of a grown-up, a naval officer who, astonished, bitterly gets to know the situation before rescuing the children.
I first read the book as a child, somehow not considering the age of the boys for I had more or less the same, but being struck by the powerful images and message, and by the enchanting writing style apt to convey all the disturbing lush beauty of the island, as well as the subtle changes in the thought processes of the protagonists. I recently read it again, noticing the real tender age of the boys and appreciating once more the narrative style of Golding. But I also paid attention to the afterworld and its parallels with the human society, always ready to project its evil outside, and the political situation at his time, capturing this reflection and many interesting others: "I condemn and detest my country's faults precisely because I am so proud of her many virtues. One of our faults is to believe that evil is somewhere else and inherent in another nation. My book was to say: you think that now the war is over and an evil thing destroyed, you are safe because you are naturally kind and decent. But I know why the thing rose in Germany. I know it could happen in any country. It could happen here. So the boys try to construct a civilization on the island; but it breaks down in blood and terror because the boys are suffering from the terrible disease of being human."
Stephen King, another explorer of humanity’s dark side, in Hearts in Atlantis makes the fable’s message explicit: "He found himself thinking of what William Golding had said, that the boys on the island were rescued by the crew of a battle-cruiser and good for them.. but who would rescue the crew?
That was stupid, no one ever looked less in need of rescuing than Rionda Hewson did at that moment, but the words still haunted Bobby. What if there were no grownups? Suppose the hole idea of grownups was an illusion? What if their money was really just playground marbles, their business deals no more than baseball-card trades, their wars only games of guns in the park? What if they were all still snotty-nosed kids inside their suits and dresses? Christ, that couldn't be, could it? It was too horrible to think about."

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Cheerflower said on Nov 1, 2011 about the Paperback edition | 1 feedback

Civil Remission and the Human Condition

1. What did you like about the book?
I found the books allegorical philosophies of the human condition to be extremely well concieved. Golding, an optimist by nature, faces the idea of internal animalistic tendencies in regards to survival. This is an all-ages venture into the human psyche', comple ... (continue)

1. What did you like about the book?
I found the books allegorical philosophies of the human condition to be extremely well concieved. Golding, an optimist by nature, faces the idea of internal animalistic tendencies in regards to survival. This is an all-ages venture into the human psyche', complete with actions, adventure, philosophical detail, allegorical design, and a bittersweet conclusion. I am ashamed to say this was the first time I have read the book, but I doubt very much it'll be the last.
2. What did you dislike about the book?
The only minute detractor I have for "Lord of the Flies" is that Golding often uses uneccesary repitition when writing. This isn't a stylistic error, but a personal preference of mine. Other than that tid-bit, I have little to grumble about.
3. What 3 connections did you make with the book?
The novel I am currently working on delves deeply into an allegorical look on the perspectives of war and human defenses; reading Golding's work helped me gain perspective on my own writings.
Also, being a Jungian "mastermind" personality, I sympethize greatly with Simon, who is portrayed as a contemplative and Christ-like figure. I'm not Christ by any means, but I connect fervently with the general demeanor of Simon, and felt at home reading his passages.
Though Golding discribes himself as an optimist, I can't help but connect his work with Hobbsian philosophy--man is born destructive and is so by nature. I, being a fan (though not ardent supporter of) Hobbes, can easily see the similarities, but Golding is more matter-of-fact then the aggressive Hobbsian philosophy.
4. How will you integrate this book into your classroom curriculum?
I would love to instruct this novel to older ages (11th or 12th) as I feel it becomes diluted by the doctrine of it being a ninth grade book. Also, it would be great to impliment this book while my students are studying World War II in history, as it takes place at the time and speaks volumes about its causes from a philosophical and sociological stand-points. Truly, however, I'd be happy to do this book any time, any year.

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Squatinbeagle said on Dec 6, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Dull, even duller than the Golding-supported movie of 1963.
Besides, I don't get it: most of the reviews focus on some alleged portrait of "human condition" (and this was likely the intent of the author), but... the story is not about a bunch of newborns! On the contrary, they are almost in their ... (continue)

Dull, even duller than the Golding-supported movie of 1963.
Besides, I don't get it: most of the reviews focus on some alleged portrait of "human condition" (and this was likely the intent of the author), but... the story is not about a bunch of newborns! On the contrary, they are almost in their teen years, and all have been trough a long, harsh, formal education in a country which is in the middle of a nuclear war...

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Marzian said on Nov 27, 2011 | Add your feedback