Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Published in 1954, ‘Lord of the Flies’ is one of the most decorated novels of the 20th century. It is a survival story that challenged the survival stories of its age and brought towards us a realistic depiction of the collapse of civilisation through a plane crash on an island that involved young children. R.M Ballantyne had already written his novel ‘The Coral Island’ which tells of how young boys who were stranded worked together to overcome adversity, making the most of a sort of boy-scouts situation. Golding read it and thought that this is not the way it would go at all. He wrote his own version entitled ‘Lord of the Flies’ which not only went on to become more successful but, Ballantyne’s novel has practically fell into obscurity now.

Much of ‘Lord of the Flies’ is thanks to William Golding’s knowings of reality as he experienced it when he was a naval officer in World War 2. And, now that he was a teacher in a Grammar School, he wanted to make his literary mark in the world. ‘Lord of the Flies’ was initially rejected by the publishers that Golding had sent it too. Many of them not really understanding the point of the book. Faber and Faber in London finally decided to take it on and it became an absolute success. With an unnamed setting and a tropical island that turns into a depiction of one of the circles of the Inferno, this novel is known for hitting home pretty hard and it holds back no punches.

The Plot

Ralph starts off the novel by exploring the island and slowly, we are introduced to Piggy, Jack, Simon, Roger and the other characters. At the beginning of the novel, these characters are fairly normal with the agreement that the conch should be used to indicate the requirement to speak being universally accepted amongst the group. However, trouble starts brewing immediately as we see tensions rise in the way Jack treats Piggy. After this, we see Jack try to take over from what Ralph has started and, he very nearly succeeds.

With characters ranging from the ages of 6 to 12, we witness children take matters into their own hands without the protection and guidance of adults. They chase and hunt, they fear the ‘beast’ and they kill each other. When the fires start burning and a small child burns to death, Piggy begins to question what will happen to them all by the time this is over. As the land burns and the smoke rises, the boys turn feral and animal in an attempt to depict one of the most horrifying images of ‘survival of the fittest’.

Into the Book

The themes are many and symbolism is rife throughout the book. From the beginning we have the symbolism of the conch which is agreed to be the only way you’re allowed to speak in the meetings. However, the conch in ancient south eastern literature also represents a battle cry. Depicted in epics like the ‘Mahabharata’, the conch is the cry to war, a signal that the tensions have finally broke and that it is time to protect your side. The question of whether the first sighting of the conch in ‘Lord of the Flies’ is actually a sign that all hell is about to break lose has a very defining answer: yes, it is.

This is only naturally followed by Jack’s horrid treatment of Piggy which starts off as name-calling and later in the book will turn into physical assault and attempted murder. Jack’s reaction to the conch is on of fire and edge which presents him as a character who invokes chaos, the exact opposite to Ralph. The conch is therefore coated with symbolism, but the most important part of the conch’s existence in the novel is the very point that it arrives. It is the single most important harbinger of chaos.

“The conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.”

- Lord of the Flies

Another important symbol in the book is the character of Simon. Simon is very clearly named after Simon Peter, or as he is more commonly known, Saint Peter. Simon is the one person in the group that causes no trouble whatsoever, he takes no chaos and seems to be at peace most of the time. Once he wanders into the woods and has a conversation with the corpse of the ‘beast’, his chapter ends with an almost defiance of the atmosphere encompassing the rest of the novel - his chapter ends in peace and sleep. Unfortunately, like Saint Peter, Simon is sacrificed for the sake of the chaos ensuing the land. Ultimately, he is killed for no reason and quickly, the boys seem to forget about him.

A practical reaction of chaos that builds chaos, Jack goes back to keeping the fires burning around him and, having taken over most of the island by this point, he is not going to dwell on the death of a boy who had not chosen a side. More importantly, had not chosen his side. Simon becomes a martyr for the peacefulness and order of the island that once existed at the beginning when Ralph was in charge for a short space of time. He also becomes this image of the ‘final straw’ being pulled out from society. As he was the only one seemingly holding it together, the only character who was still well-grounded and had not been corrupted by anything, when he dies, it serves as a sort of volta for the novel to become a cacophony of death and chaos.

"Somewhere over the darkened curve of the world the sun and moon were pulling; and the film of water on the earth planet was held, bulging slightly on one side while the solid core turned. The great wave of the tide moved further along the island and the water lifted. Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon's dead body moved out towards the open sea.”

- Lord of the Flies

One final key symbol in the text is the well-known pig’s head. Also known as the ‘Lord of the Flies’, the pig’s head is symbolic of the sort of power Jack brings. An enactment of the devil and a personification of evil itself, Jack uses the ‘Lord of the Flies’ to strike fear into his followers. Not only does it symbolise this fear that was still prevalent in post-war Britain at that time, but it is also symbolic of how Jack would view his followers - as flies. The parasitical nature that the chaos turns into is almost cultish and is like how flies rummage and bury themselves into a purpose without much thought. It reflects moments like the murder of Simon and the death of one of the young boys.

The fact that many humans do not like flies because of their nature for being chaotic also reflects the lack of civilisation amongst the boys at this point. They are the flies and they are no longer civilised. It has become a ‘survival of the fittest’ situation in which it is kill or be killed. It is no longer a society that works together but one of mindlessness and constant movement out of fear that one day, they will be no more.

“I'm scared of him. And that's why I know him. If you're scared of someone you hate him but you can't stop thinking about him. You kid yourself he's all right really, an' then when you see him again, it's like an asthma an' you can't breathe.”

- Lord of the Flies

Why It’s a Masterpiece

Bleak and specific, but universal, fusing rage and grief, Lord of the Flies is both a novel of the 1950s, and for all time.

- McCrum, 2015

EM Forster would choose this book as his “outstanding novel of the year” and that is when things really started turning around for a novel once labelled ‘dull’ and ‘pointless’. It was fought for by a young publisher at Faber and Faber when nobody else wanted it and, it went on its way to become a respected classic of a dystopian alternate reality that never gives up on its readers, inviting them for a second and third reading of the text.

In my personal opinion, this novel brought to light that children could be subjected to horrors too and not since books like ‘Bleak House’ and ‘Oliver Twist’ by Charles Dickens have we been forced to confront that maybe children have a reality too, one that deeply changes them if they are not guided by adults. It becomes difficult for them to remain civilised when there is nothing to depend upon. When there are no models for civilisation, civilisation collapses.

There is something really interesting about reading books that have real deep trauma to them. There’s nothing quite like it to read about the absolute extremes of human survival in which there is lots of stake - including the lives of the people around.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ‘Lord of the Flies’ has become a symbol of the 20th century dystopian movement, up there with the works of George Orwell. It has become a testament to everything that could have happened when the atomic bomb was dropped. Not being shy of violence has possibly become its most valuable aspect and it has not, over the years, let us down. It is still harrowing with its level and extremity of violence and has a certain way of making us feel really upset for the boys involved because we are constantly reminded of how young they really are.

Sources Cited:

• McCrum, R. (2015). The 100 best novels: No 74 – Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954). The Guardian.

Next Week: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte