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Fiction

Notes 24.2 William Golding — Lord of the Flies: Introduction to the Text

24.2.1 Introduction to the Lord of the Flies

Sir William Golding composed Lord of the Flies shortly after the end of WWII. At the time of
the novel’s composition, Golding, who had published an anthology of poetry nearly two
decades earlier, had been working for a number of years as a teacher and training as a scientist.
Golding drew extensively on his scientific background for his first narrative work. The novel’s
plot, in which a group of English boys stranded on a deserted island struggle to develop their
own society, is a social and political thought-experiment using fiction. The story of their
attempts at civilization and devolution into savagery and violence puts the relationship between
human nature and society under a literary microscope. Golding’s allusions to human evolution
also reflect his scientific training. The characters discover fire, craft tools, and form political
and social systems in a process that recalls theories of the development of early man, a topic
of much interest among many peoples including the mid-century Western public. The culmination
of the plot in war and murder suggests that Golding’s overarching hypothesis about humanity
is pessimistic, that is, there are anarchic and brutal instincts in human nature. Ordered democracy
or some other regime is necessary to contain these instincts.
As an allegory about human nature and society, Lord of the Flies draws upon Judeo-Christian
mythology to elaborate on the novel’s sociological and political hypothesis. The title has two
meanings, both charged with religious significance. The first is a reference to a line from King
Lear, “As flies to wanton boys, are we to gods.” The second is a reference to the Hebrew name
Ba’alzevuv, or in its Greek form Beelzebub, which translates to “God of the Flies” and is
synonymous with Satan. For Golding however, the satanic forces that compel the shocking
events on the island come from within the human psyche rather than from an external, supernatural
realm as they do in Judeo-Christian mythology. Golding thus employs a religious reference to
illustrate a Freudian concept: the Id, the amoral instinct that governs the individual’s sense of
sheer survival, is by nature evil in its amoral pursuit of its own goals. The Lord of the Flies,
that is, the pigs head on a stick, directly challenges the most spiritually motivated character
on the island, Simon, who functions as a prophet-martyr for the other boys.
Published in 1954 early in the Cold War, Lord of the Flies is firmly rooted in the sociopolitical
concerns of its era. The novel alludes to the Cold War conflict between liberal democracy and
totalitarian communism. Ralph represents the liberal tradition, while Jack, before he succumbs
to total anarchy, represents the kind of military dictatorship that, for mid-century America
and Great Britain, characterized the communist system. It is also notable that Golding sets the
novel in what appears to be a future human reality, one that is in crisis after atomic war.
Golding’s novel capitalizes on public paranoia surrounding the atom bomb which, due to the
arms race of the Cold War, was at a high. Golding’s negative depiction of Jack, who represents
an anti-democratic political system, and his suggestion of the reality of atomic war, present
the novel as a gesture of support for the Western position in the Cold War.
In addition to science, mythology, and the sociopolitical context of the Cold War, Lord of the
Flies was heavily influenced by previous works of speculative fiction. In particular, Golding’s
novel alludes to R. M. Ballantyne’s 1857 The Coral Island, which tells the story of three boys
stranded on a desert island. Golding, who found Ballantyne’s interpretation of the situation
naive and improbable, likely intended Lord of the Flies to be an indirect critique of The Coral
Island. Golding preserves the names of two of Ballantyne’s characters, Ralph and Jack, to force
the two texts into deeper comparison. While the boys of Coral Island spend their time having
pleasant adventures, Golding’s characters battle hunger, loneliness, and the deadly consequences
of political conflict after they are deserted. The pessimistic character of Golding’s story reflects

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