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Unit 24: William Golding — Lord of the Flies

the author’s emphasis on the necessity of democratic civilization. Critics also have noted the Notes
relationship between Lord of the Flies and Joseph Conrad’s canonical 1902 Heart of Darkness,
which follows a soldier’s excursion into marginal African civilizations. Reflecting some biases,
Heart of Darkness depicts these parts of Africa as places where social order is absent and
anarchy rules, breeding death and disorder; the novel sees the same problem as an issue
within the individual human soul. Like Conrad’s work, Golding’s novel emphasizes the brutal
and violent human impulses that arise in the absence of political order.
Lord of the Flies, with its dystopian and speculative characteristics, established Golding as a
solid author with an interest in the science-fiction literary genre that was popular in the 1950s.
The novel depicts ostensibly realistic characters, but the plot, which follows a small group of
humans isolated within an alien landscape, employs or alludes to the conventions of popular
science fiction novels of the time. Golding’s subsequent works saw him moving even further
into the science fiction genre. The Inheritors, heavily influenced by H. G. Wells’s Outline of
History, imagines life during the dawn of man and is considered a modern classic of speculative
fiction.

Self Assessment

Multiple Choice Questions:
1. Lord of the flies is a novel by Nobel prize winning author ......... .
(a) Joseph Andrews (b) Jane Austen

(c) William Golding (d) Aldous Huxley
2. In which year, the novel was chosen by TIME magazine?
(a) 1990 (b) 2005
(c) 1999 (d) 2004

3. In which year, Golding published his first novel?
(a) 1923 (b) 1954
(c) 1962 (d) None of these
4. In which year, William Golding was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II?
(a) 1988 (b) 1987
(c) 1990 (d) 1972

5. Sir William Golding composed Lord of the flies shortly after the end of ......... .
(a) Cold war (b) World war I
(c) Napoleonic war (d) World war II

Lord of the Flies was not an instant success, selling fewer than 3,000 copies before going out
of print in 1955. Shortly thereafter, however, the novel became a bestseller among American
and British readers who, as the arms race intensified, likely saw in Golding’s wartime dystopia
a grim prediction of their own future. By the 1960s the novel was required reading for many
high school and college courses, where it has remained to the present day. The enduring
popularity of the novel inspired two film adaptations, one by Peter Brook in 1963, and the
second by Harry Hook in 1990. Golding’s original novel, however, remains the best-known
version of the tale.

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