The Lord of Flies

It was 48 years ago when a man named William Golding, put his pen to his paper and composed a literary masterpiece called, Lord of the Flies. The book brings together every boy’s fantasy of being isolated on a deserted island and the harsh reality of human nature. With no authority, evil, hatred and pure savagery will no doubt take their toll.

Taking place during World War II, a plane full of English schoolboys crashes and the boys that survive swim to the shore of a nearby island. At first the boys have good intentions. They have decided to keep a fire going so that someone can see the smoke and rescue them, however because of lack of interest, the good intentions that some of the boys had, were quickly put aside for more exciting things. The hunting of a pig slowly began to take over the boys life, and the first sign of a major change in the minds of the boys comes from Jack, the elected leader of the hunters, after he can no longer live with himself, because he could not bring himself to slaughter the first pig he comes across. Soon the leader of the whole group, Ralph, is forced to split everyone up into separate groups because a ship doesn’t spot the signal fire that Jack and his hunters neglected to replenish while off making their first kill. This causes the first separation of power in the book, because Ralph finds that no one is willing to stick to the tasks that he has assigned.

The first sign of symbolism in the book is when one of the little boys, also known as the littluns, tells the group that he saw “A snake-thing. Ever so big” (p 35). This puts the group into an uproar about how some sort of beast is lurking on the island. Being the leader, Ralph tries to calm everybody down by saying “he must have had a nightmare” (p 36), but Jack just has to pop in stating that “if there was a snake we’d hunt it and kill it. We’ll make sure when we go hunting” (p 37). The beast ends up playing a major role in the novel. It is as though the idea that some sort of beast is on the island, has taken over control of the boy’s minds. They become so overwhelmed with fear and uncertainty, that the older boys change their fears into hatred towards the other boys, especially the littluns. During the beginning of the story, two older boys named Roger and Maurice, “were relieved from duty at the signal fire and came down for a swim” (p 60). Roger led the