10 Things You Should Know About Lord of the Flies

10 Things You Should Know About Lord of the Flies
10 Things You Should Know About Lord of the Flies

[schema type=”book” name=”Lord of the Flies” description=”A dystopian novel about a group of young British boys marooned on an deserted island who try to govern themselves with tragic results.” author=”William Golding” publisher=” Faber and Faber” ]

 

10 Things You Should Know About Lord of the Flies

 

When Lord of the flies was published in 1954 very few people could have predicted that it would go on to become a worldwide success.

In the book we read about the story of a group of children being evacuated from an area at risk from fallout in a nuclear war who

are marooned on an idyllic desert island following a plane crash.  We watch as the boys make attempts to secure their situation by electing a leader and building a smoke signal.  From the very beginning, however, trouble rears its head when the members of a choir group refuse to support the election process and instead form a hunting party to search for food.  As time goes on the choir becomes ever more powerful with its leaders playing to the boys’ adolescent delusions about the ‘beast’.  This paranoia becomes so powerful that the boys, in a frenzy, turn on one of their own mistaking him for the beast, and kill him.

In the aftermath another child, Piggy is killed and the island set on fire.  Fleeing for his life from the murderous choir the leader happens across a Naval Officer who came from a nearby ship alerted to their presence by the raging fire consuming the island.

Over the years the book, with its no holds barred portrayal of the human capacity for savagery that is present even from a very young age shocked and upset readers.  Even today, many decades later, the book with its clever intermingling of story and allegory continues to have the power to shock the reader.

10The book is a reaction to the Coral Island by R M Ballantyne

The Lord of the Flies was written as a response book

9The book frequently makes top book lists

Lord of the Flies is always near the top of those best book lists

8Lord of the Flies is one of the most banned books in the US

The Lord of the Flies is a popular book to ban.

7The conch shell is an allegory for democracy

The Conch Shell in Lord of the Flies has special meaning

6Piggy, although physically vulnerable, is the most adult of all the children

Piggy is the most vulnerable but most adult child in the Lord of the flies

5The Beast represents the latent savagery within all humans

A rendering of the Beast from the Lord of the Flies

4The Choir is a allegory for the veneer of civilization which overlays our own fundamentally brutal society

The Choir is an allegory

Choirboys are often seen as the epitome of innocence so when we first meet them on this idyllic desert island we assume that they are the embodiment of childish innocence.  Golding not only smashes this ‘trope’ to smithereens but turns it on its head.  Jack, the leader of the choir is almost immediately at odds with the style of leadership and choices made by Ralph.  He places himself and his choir in the role of hunters but the first time they come across a pig he hesitates, struck with the enormity of taking another life.

Shamed that his moment of what he perceives to be a weakness was witnessed by the rest of the choir Jack becomes ever more bloodthirsty and consumed with the idea of the hunt to the exclusion of everything else, even rescue.  Jack dons face paint with the overt intention to mask his humanity from the pigs he is hunting.  This simple act causes Jack and his choir to lose their connection with the strictures of civilization.  By masking their human nature they are, in effect, denying its existence.

The choir is, then, an allegory for the veneer of civilization which we impose upon ourselves and which is so terribly vulnerable.

3The Naval Officer is disgusted by the state of the children but does not see the parallels with the adult war being fought at the same time

The Naval Officer is at digusted by the boys in the Lord of the Flies

2When the children encounter the Naval Officer they immediately revert to their previous child-like state

The boys revert to their child-like state in the naval officer’s presence

1The name Lord of the Flies is a translation from Beelzebub

The Devil is the true Lord of the Flies