Lord of the Flies
A novel by William Golding
About William Golding:-
William Golding, in full Sir William Gerald Golding, September 19, 1911 -died June 19, 1993 English novelist who in 1983 won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his parables of the human condition. He attracted a cult of followers, especially among the youth of the post-World War II generation.
Educated at Marlborough Grammar School, where his father taught, and at Brasenose College, Oxford, Golding graduated in 1935. After working in a settlement house and in small theatre companies, he became a schoolmaster at Bishop Wordsworth’s School, Salisbury. He joined the Royal Navy in 1940, took part in the action that saw the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck, and commanded a rocket-launching craft during the invasion of France in 1944. After the war he resumed teaching at Bishop Wordsworth’s until 1961.
William Golding was born in Cornwall, England in 1911. He had one older brother, Joseph. His father, Alec Golding, was a teacher at the school both brothers attended, The Marlborough Grammar School in Wiltshire. Golding’s parents were radical in their politics, pacifists, socialists, and atheists and were not affectionate with their children.
Marriage and family
Golding was engaged to Molly Evans, a woman from Marlborough, who was well liked by both of his parents.However, he broke off the engagement and married Ann Brookfield, an analytical chemist,on 30 September 1939. They had two children, David (born September, 1940) and Judith (born July, 1945).
War service
During World War II, Golding joined the Royal Navy in 1940. He served on a destroyer which was briefly involved in the pursuit and sinking of the German battleship Bismarck. Golding participated in the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, commanding a landing craft that fired salvoes of rockets onto the beaches. He was also in action at Walcheren in October and November 1944, during which time 10 out of 27 assault craft that went into the attack were sunk.
Works
Poetry
Poems (1934)
Drama
The Brass Butterfly (1958)
Novels
Lord of the Flies (1954)
The Inheritors (1955)
Pincher Martin (1956)
Free Fall (1959)
The Spire (1964)
The Pyramid (1967)
Darkness Visible (1979)
To the Ends of the Earth (trilogy)
Rites of Passage (1980)
Close Quarters (1987)
Fire Down Below (1989)
The Paper Men (1984)
The Double Tongue (posthumous publication 1995)
Death
In 1985, Golding and his wife moved to a house called Tullimaar in Perranarworthal, near Truro, Cornwall. He died of heart failure eight years later on 19 June 1993. His body was buried in the parish churchyard of Bowerchalke near his former home and the Wiltshire county border with Hampshire and Dorset.
On his death he left the draft of a novel, The Double Tongue, set in ancient Delphi, which was published posthumously in 1995
Golding’s first published novel was Lord of the Flies (1954; film 1963 and 1990), the story of a group of schoolboys isolated on a coral island who revert to savagery. Its imaginative and brutal depiction of the rapid and inevitable dissolution of social mores aroused widespread interest.
The Inheritors (1955), set in the last days of Neanderthal man, is another story of the essential violence and depravity of human nature. The guilt-filled reflections of a naval officer, his ship torpedoed, who faces an agonizing death are the subject of Pincher Martin (1956). Two other novels, Free Fall (1959) and The Spire (1964), also demonstrate Golding’s belief that “man produces evil as a bee produces honey.” Darkness Visible (1979) tells the story of a boy horribly burned in the London blitz during World War II. His later works include Rites of Passage (1980), which won the Booker McConnell Prize, and its sequels, Close Quarters (1987) and Fire Down Below (1989). Golding was knighted in 1988.
Sir William Golding once said, “Look out; the evil is in us all” Nobel Prize winner and best-selling author Golding has written modern classics like The Lord of the Flies and Rite of Passage among other novels and publications, all of which are attributed to great acclaim and criticism. Golding’s work and tone was heavily influenced by the events he had witnessed in his life. Golding’s dark and morose view of society and human nature, and his brilliant creativity helped to make him one of the stand-out writers of the modern era. William Golding’s dark disposition helped to form the bleak views of human nature in his writing that contributed to Golding being chosen for the Nobel Prize in literature.
Golding was witness to the darkness and evil in humanity when he fought in World War Two. He served for the British Royal Navy, and watched the storming of Normandy Beach, on D-Day, as he was on duty giving naval support from the ship he was stationed on. As Golding once recalled, “World War II was the turning point for me. I began to see what people were capable of doing. Anyone who moved through those years without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey, must have blind or wrong in the head.” It is hard not to believe that anyone who had to witness, let alone participate in the horrible event that is D-Day, would have a dark and pessimistic view of humanity.
And this pessimism and dreary outlook is apparent in much of his work. Bruce Lambert of the New York Times writes, “He [Golding] was best known for his themes of the struggle between good and evil and for symbolism that invited interpretations on many levels.” This struggle can be found in Golding’s most famous and first published work, Lord of the Flies, where a group of British school boys are in a plane crash and stranded on an island. The group reverts into acting in the primal behaviors and tribal rivalry, with one tribe representing the good and diplomatic side of human behavior and the other tribe representing the cruel, evil, hate filled side. When starting to write this book, Golding had imagine two still pictures in his mind, one of an excited boy happy to be on the island, and another boy being hunted down by the tribal savages the boys had become. Golding had to use his brilliant creativity to link the two pictures and produce the compelling story that is Lord of the Flies.
There is much debate about whether William Golding should have been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1983, but the Nobel Foundation press release states that his creative use of his dark view of society made it possible to “...illuminate the human condition in the world of today.” Golding has had a life that not many have experienced, and witness many dark events during his life and the time in the war, and all of these have contributed to his writing. When this dark mentality is combined with his theatrical and brilliant creativity, it is easy to see that Golding is a top notch writer that lends a perspective of life that is compelling and influential. The Nobel Foundation recognized this and in 1983, made Sir William Golding an official Nobel Laureate for his important contributions to the world and to literature.
Significance of the Title Lord of the Flies
“Lord of the Flies” as a title is most appropriate for this novel of Golding, as it gives us a definite clue to the major theme of the novel. The title clearly shows that the novel was intended to have an allegorical purpose. The Lord of the Flies is Beelzebub, mentioned in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Beelzebub is the prince of demons and Milton used this name for one of his fallen angles. For a novel to have this title, evidently shows that the theme of the story would be evil, or a clash between the forces of evil and the forces of good. And, indeed such a clash is the principal theme of this particular novel.
The phrase “Lord of the Flies” first comes in chapter-8, when we find Simon alone in the jungle. He is looking from his hiding place in the forest at the fly covered head of dead pig killed by Jack and his hunters. Jack cut off the Sow’s head, offered it as a sacrifice to the beast in order to appease the beast. This is a “gift for the darkness. Simon has observed the doings of Jack and his hunters and the Sow’s head seems to Simon to be Beelzebub – the lord of the flies. He feels as if the head the lord of the flies, was speaking to him. It wars Simon that he cannot escape him, the beast, for he is a part of everyone and he is responsible for all of their difficulties. He threatens Simon repeatedly and finally Simon faints. This hallucination is described at the end of chapter-8 and it explains the title of the novel and the allegorical significance of the whole story.
The head of the pig hung on a stick, becomes a symbol of terror. Golding gives it the title Lord of the Flies which is a translation of the Arabic word Baal-zebub, the name of a devil. The head of the pig represents the evil of unreason. The Flies that buzz over the guts of the Sow are instinctive beings and they represent the primitive urges that dominate the boys. He (Lord of the Flies) asks Simon to go away. Simon insists that the Lord of the flies is only a “Pig’s head on a stick”.
In fact this whole episode is a symbolic representation of the conflict between the highest and lowest impulses in man. Lord of the Flies explains that the boys would never be able to hunt or kill the beast. And, then the Lord of the Flies says:
“You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you?”
It answers the question why the civilization of boys is a total failure. The destructive element is in the boys themselves. Golding wants to say that whatever name you give to the evil – devil, sin, neurosis, hate, violence, brutality – the fact is that evil exists inside man. The symbolic encounter between Simon and the lord of the flies represents the conflict between good and evil — as it is found in every man.
As Simon and lord of the flies represent universal tendencies, so each of the other characters stand for a single quality cruelty, destructiveness, creativity or intellect that exists to a greater or lesser degree in every man. Ralph’s tendency to adventure and common sense, Piggy‘s intellectualism, Simon’s religious feelings and mystic behaviour Roger’s instinct for torture, Jack’s inclination towards destruction, all are part of man and man’s moral
out-look decides how these tendencies are oriented in him. These are all present as impulses in man.
The novel negates the belief that naturally good man is the innocent and helpless victim of social forces over which he has no control. Golding also rejects Rousseau’s ideal of the noble savage- natural man was good by instinct is victimized from birth by society which is the real culprit. Golding follows the Biblical point of view of human nature, in the first book, the Book of Genesis (Old Testament), Adam and Eve is presented as having brought their own downfall through disobedience, which has been called original sin. Theologians think that all mankind is sinful and wicked because Adam and Eve were sinful. From this point of view man is born into the world in a state of original sin, a fault traceable to his own human nature and not to society.
Thus Golding believes in the fall of man. But Golding does not merely hold the religious point of view held by Christianity. His main concern is with human nature. His second novel The Inheritors also present the under-standing of primitive mind. He believes that there can be no happy solution to the problems of man’s society because the defects of human nature” shape society. He stresses the point that man is evil by instinct. He can only be controlled by external forces, the norms of society. The moment he is free of these norms or rules and regulations and is given to himself he turns savage – as the boys on the island do.
Golding like Conrad exposes the inner darkness of modern man. His ideal is the Neanderthal man, i.e., 12000 BC man of Europe. As Golding puts it:
“I decided to take the literary convention of the boys on an island only to make them real boys instead of paper cut-outs with no life in them and tried to show how the shape of the society they evolved would be conditioned by their disease their fallen nature. In fact they regress to savagery. They try to construct a civilization on the island but it breaks down into blood and terror because the boys are suffering from the terrible disease of being human beings. I am a propagandist for Neanderthal man.”
To be curt, we can say that the title Lord of the Flies is most appropriate for this novel because it very beautifully presents the theme of the novel man is by nature evil. And when Jack presents a sacrifice to the beast Golding succeeds in dispelling the notion that man is basically good. Golding believes that man is follower of the Lord of the Flies. As Lord of the Flies utters:
“I’m part of you.”
Theme of the Novel Lord of the flies
1.Civilization Vs. Savagery
The central concern of Lord of the Flies is the conflict between two competing impulses that exist within all human beings: the instinct to live by rules, act peacefully, follow moral commands, and value the good of the group against the instinct to gratify one’s immediate desires, act violently to obtain supremacy over others, and enforce one’s will. This conflict might be expressed in a number of ways: civilization vs. savagery, order vs. chaos, reason vs. impulse, law vs. anarchy, or the broader heading of good vs. evil. Throughout the novel, Golding associates the instinct of civilization with good and the instinct of savagery with evil. The conflict between the two instincts is the driving force of the novel, explored through the dissolution of the young English boys’ civilized, moral, disciplined behavior as they accustom themselves to a wild, brutal, barbaric life in the jungle.
Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel, which means that Golding conveys many of his main ideas and themes through symbolic characters and objects. He represents the conflict between civilization and savagery in the conflict between the novel’s two main characters: Ralph, the protagonist, who represents order and leadership; and Jack, the antagonist, who represents savagery and the desire for power. As the novel progresses, Golding shows how different people feel the influences of the instincts of civilization and savagery to different degrees. Piggy, for instance, has no savage feelings, while Roger seems barely capable of comprehending the rules of civilization. Generally, however, Golding implies that the instinct of savagery is far more primal and fundamental to the human psyche than the instinct of civilization.
Golding sees moral behavior, in many cases, as something that civilization forces upon the individual rather than a natural expression of human individuality. When left to their own devices, Golding implies, people naturally revert to cruelty, savagery, and barbarism. This idea of innate human evil is central to Lord of the Flies, and finds expression in several important symbols, most notably the beast and the sow’s head on the stake. Among all the characters, only Simon seems to possess anything like a natural, innate goodness.
2.Loss Of Innocence
As the boys on the island progress from well-behaved, orderly children longing for rescue to cruel, bloodthirsty hunters who have no desire to return to civilization, they naturally lose the sense of innocence that they possessed at the beginning of the novel. The painted savages in Chapter 12 who have hunted, tortured, and killed animals and human beings are a far cry from the guileless children swimming in the lagoon in Chapter 3. But Golding does not portray this loss of innocence as something that is done to the children; rather, it results naturally from their increasing openness to the innate evil and savagery that has always existed within them. Golding implies that civilization can mitigate but never wipe out the innate evil that exists within all human beings. The forest glade in which Simon sits in Chapter 3 symbolizes this loss of innocence. At first, it is a place of natural beauty and peace, but when Simon returns later in the novel, he discovers the bloody sow’s head impaled upon a stake in the middle of the clearing. The bloody offering to the beast has
disrupted the paradise that existed before—a powerful symbol of innate human evil disrupting childhood innocence.
3. Struggle To Build Civilization
The struggle to build civilization forms the main conflict of Lord of the Flies. Ralph and Piggy believe that structure, rules, and maintaining a signal fire are the greatest priorities, while Jack believes hunting, violence, and fun should be prioritized over safety, protection, and planning for the future. While initially the boys, including Jack, agree to abide by Ralph’s rules and democratic decision-making, the slow and thoughtful process of building an orderly society proves too difficult for many of the boys. They don’t want to help build the shelters, maintain the signal fire, or take care of the littluns. The immediate fun and visceral rewards of hunting, chanting, and dancing around the fire are more attractive than the work of building a sustainable society. Near the end of the novel, even Ralph is tempted by Jack’s authoritarian regime, regularly forgetting why the fire and rescue is so important.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
Symbols from the Novel Lord of the flies
1. Symbol of conch
One of the most important symbols in Lord of the Flies is the “conch” shell. The conch symbolizes democracy, law and order, authority, civilized behavior. It brings peace to the group of boys. It is the only item in the island that makes them united and keeps them civilized. Finally the conch shattered to thousand fragments when Roger releases the rock from above, killing piggy. The destruction of the conch symbolizes the end of civilized behavior and the beginning of autocracy, despotism and barbarism.
2.Symbol of Piggy’s Glasses
Piggy’s glasses also carry symbolic significance. They symbolize knowledge, logic, intellect and science. Without them the boys would have never able to have fire. They are also lens or window through which goodness and evilness can be scanned. Piggy uses his glasses not only to see, but also to discern what is right, wrong, safe or harmful. When Piggy loses his spectacles, he also loses his clear vision and power of discernment.
Fire also symbolizes survival and destruction, life and death. Fire is first used to try to attract a passing ship which would take the boys back to civilization. The flame also symbolizes hope. The boys keep the signal burning and their hopes alive. However, as the fire grows dim, it reflects the attitude of the boys and their loss of morale. At the end it becomes the symbol of rescue as the boys are rescued from the island.
3.Symbol of Beast
The Beast devised by the boys is imaginary, symbolizing the savage instinct within the hearts of all people. When the boys reach the climax of their savagery they begin worshipping the Beast and attributing inhuman qualities. The idea of the Beast can also be understood as propaganda used by Jack to attain a totalitarian government. The Beast, or The Lord of the Flies, (from which the novel’s title is taken), represents the devil, Beelzebub. The devil is the source of all evil.
4. Symbol of Island
The island itself serves a dual purpose; it is the symbol of hell as well as paradise. The island itself is a microcosm of planet Earth, alone in a vast surrounding universe with the capacity to sustain humanity, but also prone to destructive storms. Early in the story Ralph and his companions finds a certain glamour and enchantment on the island which is symbolic of Garden of Eden. In the last chapter, the whole island is turned into a blazing inferno which symbolizes hell.
5. Symbol of Painted Face
The painted faces of Jack and his “tribe” symbolize man’s return to primitivism and barbarism.
6.Symbolism in Characters
All the characters possess their symbolic value. Ralph symbolizes civilization and order. He shows the sophisticated side of man and holds the position of a democratic leader. Piggy represents the voice of reason in civilization. Clearly Simon is the Christ- figure, the voice of revelation. Jack and Roger symbolize evil. Jack shows the power-hungry and savage end of society while Roger represents brutality and bloodlust. The littluns represent the common people.
7.Symbol of dead Parachutist
The introduction of the dead parachutist symbolizes the fall of adult supervision. It also symbolizes the start of destruction. The appearance of the naval officer symbolizes the return of both adult supervision and civilization.
Conclusion
Golding with his superb brilliance has crafted the symbols in this novel to relate the gruesome picture of the post-World II human generation. These symbols help to convey the author’s message about human nature, with its contrasting poles of kindness and rationality and power and bloodlust. Well-written and meaningful, Lord of the Flies uses symbols to reinforce its telling of the tale of humanity.
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