Raffaella Mannori – LORD OF THE FLIES – 2014-2015
LORD OF THE FLIES (1954)
William Golding
Key Facts
FULL TITLE
· William Golding
AUTHOR
GENRE
· Lord of the Flies
· Allegory; adventure story; castaway fiction; loss-of-
innocence fiction
DATE OF FIRST PUBLICATION
NARRATOR
· 1954
· The story is told by an anonymous third-person
narrator who conveys the events of the novel without
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commenting on the action or intruding into the story.
· The narrator speaks in the third person,
POINT OF VIEW
primarily focusing on Ralph’s point of view but following Jack
and
Simon in certain episodes. The narrator is omniscient and
gives us access to the characters’ inner thoughts.
SETTING
(TIME) · Near future
PROTAGONIST
SETTING
TONE
· Dark; violent; pessimistic; tragic
(PLACE) · A deserted tropical island
· Ralph
· Free from the rules that adult society formerly imposed on them, the boys marooned on the island
MAJOR CONFLICT
struggle with the conflicting human instincts that exist within each of them—the instinct to work toward civilization and
order and the instinct to descend into savagery, violence, and chaos.
RISING ACTION
· The boys assemble on the beach. In the election for leader, Ralph defeats Jack, who is furious when he
loses. As the boys explore the island, tension grows between Jack, who is interested only in hunting, and Ralph, who
believes most of the boys’ efforts should go toward building shelters and maintaining a signal fire. When rumors surface
that there is some sort of beast living on the island, the boys grow fearful, and the group begins to divide into two camps
supporting Ralph and Jack, respectively. Ultimately, Jack forms a new tribe altogether, fully immersing himself in the
savagery of the hunt.
CLIMAX
· Simon encounters the Lord of the Flies in the forest glade and realizes that the beast is not a physical entity but
rather something that exists within each boy on the island. When Simon tries to approach the other boys and convey this
message to them, they fall on him and kill him savagely.
FALLING ACTION
· Virtually all the boys on the island abandon Ralph and Piggy and descend further into savagery and chaos.
When the other boys kill Piggy and destroy the conch shell, Ralph flees from Jack’s tribe and encounters the naval officer on
the beach.
THEMES
· Civilization vs. savagery; the loss of innocence; innate human evil
MOTIFS
· Biblical parallels;
SYMBOLS
· The conch shell; Piggy’s glasses; the signal fire; the beast; the Lord of the Flies; Ralph, Piggy, Jack, Simon, and
Roger
FORESHADOWING
· The rolling of the boulders off the Castle Rock in Chapter 6 foreshadows Piggy’s death; the Lord of the
Flies’s promise to have some “fun” with Simon foreshadows Simon’s death
Golding is investigating what man is like when he is stripped of the behaviour imposed on him by the structure of the
civilised society.
His conclusions are pessimistic: man is dominated by moral aimlessness , and under certain conditions of survival, the
primitive element in him will predominate .
Lord of the Flies is a product of the disillusioned concept of life
after the Worl War II; it is a 20 th century version of the
Puritan philosophy of original sin: man is born sinful, and his quest in life must be to reach a higher state of grace.
Golding is pessimistic about man’s chance to achieve this since there is no instinctive urge towards goodness in him
The boys , refugees from an atomic explosion, show a gradual degeneration from civilised beings into savages.
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Raffaella Mannori – LORD OF THE FLIES – 2014-2015
This is symbolised by the change that take places in the appearance of Jack and the choirboys: at the beginning of the
book , they are a disciplined body in a formal uniform, the mark of an organised society while at the end they are naked
savages with “swollen bellies”, their bodies painted and their insticts unrestrained , violent and murderous .
Golding’s experience in World War II had a profound effect on his view of humanity and the evils of which it was capable. .
Though the novel is fictional, its exploration of the idea of human evil is at least partly based on Golding’s experience with
the real-life violence and brutality of World War II. Free from the rules and structures of civilization and society, the boys
on the island in Lord of the Flies descend into savagery. As the boys splinter into factions, some behave peacefully and
work together to maintain order and achieve common goals, while others rebel and seek only anarchy and violence. In his
portrayal of the small world of the island, Golding paints a broader portrait of the fundamental human struggle between the
civilizing instinct—the impulse to obey rules, behave morally, and act lawfully—and the savage instinct—the impulse to seek
brute power over others, act selfishly, scorn moral rules, and indulge in violence.
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Much of the novel is allegorical, meaning that the characters and objects in the novel are infused with symbolic
significance that conveys the novel’s central themes and ideas. In portraying the various ways in which the boys on the
island adapt to their new surroundings and react to their new freedom, Golding explores the broad spectrum of ways in
which humans respond to stress, change, and tension.
. Some believed that the novel explores fundamental religious issues, such as original sin and the nature of good and
evil. Others approached Lord of the Flies through the theories of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who taught that the
human mind was the site of a constant battle among different impulses—the id (instinctual needs and desires), the ego (the
conscious, rational mind), and the superego (the sense of conscience and morality)..
the conscientious born leader
RALPH
Ralph is the athletic, charismatic protagonist who is the primary representative of order, civilization,
and productive leadership in the novel. While most of the other boys initially are concerned with
playing, having fun, and avoiding work, Ralph sets about building huts and thinking of ways to
maximize their chances of being rescued.
tall,fair-haired;
adventerous;
he is a dreamer:he dreams of heroic adventures;
two contrasting characteristics are at work in him:
-his tendency to dream;
-his common sense.
He clearly sees what it must be done for their survival and rescue and sets about arranging parliamentary
meetings , building a signal fire and huts.
He seems happy at the idea of living on a desert island away from the influence of adults.
Unfortunately his dreams are frustrated when his fellow youths refuse to cooperate with his romantic
vision.
Thanks to his common sense , Ralph comes out of this experience on the island with a more mature
knowledge of himself and the world around him : he recognises the universal presence of evil as a
condition of man.
PIGGY
the rational, cautious , down-to-earth type;
intelligent but physically deficient; he is a thinker not a doer;
He represents intellectualism and as such he is an outsider;
he represents an attitude of mind which is conservative as he frequently appeals to the adults’ world
and models his behaviour on that of teachers and grown-ups.
His eye glasses separates him from the world of activity and adventures in which he cannot
partecipate as freely as the other boys; he is confined to the realm of his mind;
Piggy’s glasses represent the power of science and intellectual effort in society. This
symbolic significance is clear from the start of the novel, when the boys use the lenses from
Piggy’s glasses to focus the sunlight and start a fire.
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Ironically with his build, his nickname and his squealing , he resembles the sacrificial pig. When he
dies his “arms and legs twiched a bit, like a pig’s after it has been killed”.
NB= while Piggy’s rationality is static, Ralph’s changes and he comes to understand the “fallen nature of
man”.
SIMON
epiletic and mystic as he often steals off into depths of the jungle for moments of solitude and
meditation;
sensitive boy: he responds to the beauty of the natural paradise;
he is a visionary and does not share the fears of the other boys because, by his intuitive flashes, he
comes at the central truth of the novel : “ maybe there is a beast ...maybe it is only us”
Whereas Ralph and Jack stand at opposite ends of the spectrum between civilization and savagery, Simon
stands on an entirely different plane from all the other boys.
Simon embodies a kind of innate, spiritual human goodness that is deeply connected with nature and, in its
own way, as primal as Jack’s evil. The other boys abandon moral behavior as soon as civilization is no longer
there to impose it upon them. They are not innately moral; rather, the adult world—the threat of punishment for
misdeeds—has conditioned them to act morally. To an extent, even the seemingly civilized Ralph and Piggy are
products of social conditioning, as we see when they participate in the hunt-dance.
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In Golding’s view, the human impulse toward civilization is not as deeply rooted as the human impulse toward
savagery. Unlike all the other boys on the island, Simon acts morally not out of guilt or shame but because he
believes in the inherent value of morality. He is the first to realize the problem posed by the beast and the Lord
of the Flies—that is, that the monster on the island is not a real, physical beast but rather a savagery that
lurks within each human being. The sow’s head on the stake symbolizes this idea, as we see in Simon’s
vision of the head speaking to him.
Ultimately, this idea of the inherent evil within each human being stands as the moral conclusion and central
problem of the novel.
JACK
the leader of a black-robed choirboys;
he is cruel and unpleasent;
he is the only boy who carries a knife, a symbol of death and destruction that accompany every act of
his;
his leadership resides in his ability to threaten and frighten those under him.
Jack is the novel’s primary representative of the instinct of savagery, violence, and the desire for
power—in short, the antithesis of Ralph.
From the beginning of the novel, Jack desires power above all other things. He is furious when he loses
the election to Ralph and continually pushes the boundaries of his subordinate role in the group.
The more savage Jack becomes, the more he is able to control the rest of the group. Indeed, apart from Ralph,
Simon, and Piggy, the group largely follows Jack in casting off moral restraint and embracing violence and
savagery.
Jack’s love of authority and violence are intimately connected, as both enable him to feel powerful and
exalted. By the end of the novel, Jack has learned to use the boys’ fear of the beast to control their
behavior—a reminder of how religion and superstition can be manipulated as instruments of power.
THE CONCH: Ralph and Piggy discover the conch shell on the beach at the start of the novel and use it to
summon the boys together after the crash separates them,as it can be used to produce a trumpet-like sound to summon
the boys who are scattered over the island . They gather from dispersed points on the island as Ralph blows it. The conch “
...the talisman , the fragile, shining beauty of the shell” , fragile as civilisation when submitted to a severe test .Used in this
capacity, the conch shell becomes a powerful symbol of civilization and order in the novel.The shell effectively governs the boys’
meetings, for the boy who holds the shell holds the right to speak. In this regard, the shell is more than a symbol—it is an
actual vessel of democratic power. As the island civilization erodes and the boys descend into savagery, the conch
shell loses its power and influence among them.
Later, the other boys ignore Ralph and throw stones at him when he attempts to blow the conch in Jack’s camp. The boulder that
Roger rolls onto Piggy also crushes the conch shell, signifying the defeat of the civilized instinct among almost all the boys on the
island.
It represents democracy, order , the determination to establish and maintain an organised community even in the absence of
grown-ups. But quite significantly the conch “ does not count “ on the mountains, the location of the fire.“.Jack’s words : “ the
conch is gone...” “ I’m Chief” the smashing of the conch symbolises the destruction of rationality on the island.
To throw rocks at fellow beings is to return to an age when the law of survival was the only governing brute man.Jack and
his hunters return triumphantly carrying a pig on the stake: the pig dance is a symbol of a primitive ritual.
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THE LORD OF THE FLIES
is a pig’s head put on a stick with flies buzzing over it and symbolise
it is a symbol of the evil which inside man and its destructive power.
a gift for the beast :
There is too much fear on the island and the darkness of night becomes a symbol of the confused and irrational
impulses of the boys: the darkness that exists in man can destroy him if it is not checked by imaginationa and reason: the
discovery of the evil powers that lurk beneath the surface.The Lord of the Flies is the bloody, severed sow’s head that Jack
impales on a stake in the forest glade as an offering to the beast.This complicated symbol becomes the most important image in
the novel when Simon confronts the sow’s head in the glade and it seems to speak to him, telling him that evil lies within every
human heart and promising to have some “fun” with him. (This “fun” foreshadows Simon’s death in the following chapter.) In this
way, the Lord of the Flies becomes both a physical manifestation of the beast, a symbol of the power of evil, a kind of
Satan figure who evokes the beast within each human being. Looking at the novel in the context of biblical parallels, the Lord
of the Flies recalls the devil, just as Simon recalls Jesus. In fact, the name “Lord of the Flies” is a literal translation of the
name of the biblical name Beelzebub, a powerful demon in hell sometimes thought to be the devil himself.
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THE CASTLE ROCK
The Castle Rock represents a natural home for a primitive cave man.The red rock is like an altar where Piggy is sacrified to the
forces of destruction .
The smashing of the conch shell at the moment of Piggy’s death represents the loss of the traditional system of authority.
Ralph’s words “ the end of innocence , the darkness of man’s heart” express the idea that there is a darkness that man
must discover if he wants to have a chance of controlling it: to ignore this knowledge is to destroy all possibilities of
learning from it.FREEDOM is dependant upon self-knowledge: the capacity man has to recognise the threat to his liberty
without and within.So at the end of the book there is some hope for the future in the knowledge that Ralph has acquired :
he understands the conflict of good and evil that exists within man
THE SIGNAL FIRE
burns on the mountain, and later on the beach, to attract the notice of passing ships that might
be able to rescue the boys. As a result, the signal fire becomes a barometer of the boys’ connection to civilization:
in the early parts of the novel, the fact that the boys maintain the fire is a sign that they want to be rescued and return to
society. When the fire burns low or goes out, we realize that the boys have lost sight of their desire to be rescued and have
accepted their savage lives on the island.
The signal fire thus functions as a kind of measurement of the strength of the civilized instinct remaining on the island.
Ironically, at the end of the novel, a fire finally summons a ship to the island, but not the signal fire. Instead, it is the fire of
savagery—the forest fire Jack’s gang starts as part of his quest to hunt and kill Ralph.
THE BEAST :
a willingness to exernalise evil in order to avoid responsabilty.The imaginary beast that frightens all
the boys stands for the primal instinct of savagery that exists within all human beings. The boys are afraid of the beast, but only
Simon reaches the realization that they fear the beast because it exists within each of them. As the boys grow more savage,
their belief in the beast grows stronger. By the end of the novel, the boys are leaving it sacrifices and treating it as a totemic
god.
A FABLE : “ the fabulistic
is a moralist . He cannot make a story without a human lesson. The fabulist is
didactic as he wants to inculcate a moral lesson”
Golding uses children as characters as they are thought to be unsophesticated and innocent (beings who make no
attempt to hide their true selves)
The pattern of the book is the movement from ORDER to CHAOS
THE AVOIDANCE OF THE CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL REALITY :
THE ISLAND SETTING
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ROBINSON CRUSOE
It takes man out of the complexities of
society, on to a desert island , in order to
LORD OF THE FLIES
i.
basically noble if freed from the fetters of society .
prove a strong social point : man is capable
, through education, of progress.
Golding’s idea is that man is a fallen creature.This theme is
developed using the form of a fable , with a mixture of
symbolism and realism.
It is a book about how man can use his
brains and hands to manipulate objects
around him: not merely to survive but
ii.
with creating a story which is not true but
it looks like being true. In other words
Defoe is concerned to create verisimilitude :
to make us believe in Crusoe as a man
Lord of the Flies is the 20th-century inversion of the 19thcentury book Coral Island : a book which reinforces the
positively to triumph.
Defoe, despite removing Robinson Crusoe
from everyday social setting , is concerned
It is a reaction against the Romantic notion that man is
Victorian faith in progress and the ethic of work.
The evil in Coral island is wholly exernalised , largely in the cannibals
who live on surrounding islands. They boys triumphly manage to
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maintain the values of the Victorian civilisation and so they are sure to
dominate the atavism recorded in the cannibals
iii.
There is an intense awareness through the novel of man’s
physical surroundings : the island and the sea are described
and the island as a real island.
beautifully but nature cannot teach the boys anything in the
Wordsworthaian tradition because it is clear that nature ( its
beauty may be usefully contrasted with the increasing
Defoe uses the isolated enviroment to
uphold his current social philosophy : Robinson
savagery on the island) has no connection with the human
actions.Nature is indifferent to the human events.Man is alone in
is a hymn to individualism, an echo of the
great confidence which the early 18th
his quest for knowledge of evil and his isolation is reinforced by
the endless ebb and flow of the sea ( which represents the
century placed in economic man
indifference of nature ).The island enviroment naturally forms
part of the romantic dream of the post-Industrail
Revolution man: the vision of man as essentially noble
and being able to recreate that nobility in an area which
is far from the automatic gestures of a mechanuised
society.
The children’s dream of freedom from the restrictions of adults’ society
mirrors the civilised man’s dream of freedom from the burderns of the
civilised society. In both cases the dream becomes a nightmare, there is
no idyll. Individualism leads to regression and brotherhood is impossible.
iv.
In religious term the novel shows the reality of the original
sin: what is shown is that man in such an isolated situation
cannot control either his enviroment or his inner desires.
v.
In post-Freudian terms it shows the inevitable triumph of the
Id when man is taken out of the security of his social position
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
THE SOUND OF THE SHELL
FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN
The opening chapeter puts us in the possession of
In the second chapter the gap between the present jollity and future
the situation from which the situation is developed .
terrors begins to shorten. Ralph tries to adopt civilised procedures he
First of all it introduces us to the setting, the
beautiful tropical island , and to the protagonists ,
remembers from school insisting that the island society must have
hunters, a fire and rules.
the children who are described phisically in a
Right from the start the presence of a possible beat is introduced by the
realistic way but their physical appearance prepares
small boys –“the littluns” - who seem to have mistaken some sort of
us for the symbolic role each of them will play in
tree creepers for snakes, an ironic comment on the notion that every
the fable.
Eden must have its own serpent.
Golding concludes the opening chapter with several
THE FIRE that the boys are going to build using Piggy’s spectacles –
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skilful uses of “foreshadowings” , warning signs
emblem of his braininess – to start a flame, carries ambiguous symbolic
of future events: a situation is given early in the
values:
novel coloured by a sort of mood , and then
repeated later, coloured by an opposing mood, to
undeline the physical and emotional changes in the
boys.For example , Jack’s failure in the first chapter
to stick the piglet because “ the enormity of the
as a smoke signal to ensure the rescue ;
a symbol of safety from the beast;
a hope of sustenance for cooking food;
knife descending” prevents him from acting because
a symbol of destruction , derived from the predominance of
the pressure of civilisation is still too prominent .
irrational and atavistic insticts of the boys . The unintentional
But when the cover of glamour and adveture is torn
but inevitable spread of the fire to the forest - the useless
aside, then both the pigs and Piggy are doomed and
destruction of much valuable wood and food- foreshadows the
the knife descends with ever increasing freedom.
final ranging fire which will destroy the island.
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
HUTS ON THE BEACH
PAINTED FACES & LONG HAIR
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Golding, at the beginning of this chpater, takes care
Time is passing and the boys are trying to attune themselves to the
to suggest the progression of the fable.
natural rhythms of the island but these experiences are coloured by
The chapter opens with Jack ‘s physical and
emotional change : long hair and savage-like
behaviour in hunting. While Jack grows to fit the
role of principal savage, he is contrasted with the
their fears: mornings are menaced by the heat of the afternoon and the
cool of the evening is menaced by the coming of darkness which brings
night fears. Brutality is coming closer to the surface , though still held in
check by memories of civilised order.
futile attempts to maintain the ordered society onn
Jack has painted his face to disguise himself in hunting but , of course,
the beach, where shelters are being built
the painting
CHAPTER 5
BEAST FROM WATER
Chapter 5 begins with Ralph, the leader, who comes
to know a fundamental truth: life on the island is
becomes
a mask behind which the hunters
get rid of
their shame and self-consciousness, letting their Id get into
themselves : the primitive lusts located in their uncoscious. This
movement towards savagery is contrasted with the unchanging of
Piggy’s state :his asthma remains, he refuses to go naked and his hair
does not grow.
not idyllic .” he found himself understanding the
In this chapetr we come to know that the hunters allow the fire to go
weariness of this life “.Most of the chapter is taken
out , thus missing an opportunity to signal to a ship on the horizon.At the
up with a discussion of the “beast” , which is a
same time Ralph
costant attempt to exernalise the evil in the
throughout the novel: “ Kill the pig. Cut her throat . Spill her blood”
sea or in the jungle. Only Simon has doubts about
the Beast when he says “ Maybe it’s the beast
...maybe it’s only us”In this chapter Ralph is aware
hears
a ritual chant which is going to be repated
This represents the letting off of human bestiality . Jack transfers his
aggression from pigs to Piggy
of how dirty children are : this physical
unpleasentness becomes expressive of spiritual
ugliness .
CHAPTER 6
BEAST FROM AIR
The chapter opens with a sign from the grown-ups,
a dead airman drops to the island by parachute
and is to be freared by the boys as the beast. The
beast is a dead man from a dying world , a world
torn apart by war. For the boys the beast is an
external evil because they are not aware that the
evil is inside and not outside. Only Ralph , at the
end, understands this, recognising the full horror of
atavism in human nature. This recognition is
similar to Marlow’s in Heart of Darkness , who sees
CHAPTERS 7 - SHADOWS AND TALL TRESS
CHAPTER 8 -GIFT FOR THE DARKNESS
CHAPTER 9
- A VIEW TO A DEATH
These chapters illustrate the long movement from “fun and games”
to hysterical ritual and brutality: the element of play has been
transformed into ritualised hysteria without restraint. Jack’s statement “
I’m not going to play anymore” is horridly ironic, and these words are
soon followed by the killing of the sow, whose head is put on a sick as a
gift for the beast.
The head becomes an external sign of Simon’s recognition of man’s
innate depravity. Folllowed his interview with the pig’s head, Simon goes
up to the mountain with a mature acceptance of a responsibility for
man’s condition . Simon acquires a Christ-like stature . A sort of
Messiah that comes to tell the truth about human nature There he
discovers the dead man , and he comes to know what the beast is
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the horror man is capable of when he meets Kurtz –
CHAPTER 10 -THE SHELL & THE
GLASSES
like.While Simon is on the mountain, Jack prepares a ritual dance for
propitiation around the fire. As Jack’s bestiality increases, magic takes
over rationality : when Simon comes down from the mountain he is
mistaken for the beast and is killed brytally and his body is carried away
by the neutral sea.
CHAPTER 12 -CRY FOR THE HUNTERS
CHAPTER 11 –CASTLE ROCK
These are motional chapters as the hunters sneak
up to Ralph’s area of the island and steal Piggy’s
spectacles which have been smashed beyond
repair. In the attempt to defend these vestiges
of rationality , Ralph’s small band travels to Castle
Rock , Jack’s home, to recover their property but
they faced the savages that once were small boys .
In Jack’s reign all rules are denied . Piggy is killed
with a stone by Roger , who at the beginning of the
novel was unable to throw stones at human beings
because he was still restrained by habits of
civilised behavious . Now it is the destructive
power of the prehistoric man who kills his victims
with primitive weapons.
Ralph is chased by a snake-like line of savages: Roger sharpens a
stick at both ends and Ralph is to become a pig .The fire now is
consuming the forest . The apperarence of the naval officer proves that
the officer is unable to recognize the real “ game” which is going on the
island: he only sees dirty, frightened little boys . This inability to
recognise what has happened mirrors man’s inability to recognise his
own capacity for evil.
Ralph’s weeps because he knows that their rescue is actually to a world
which is not safe at all because he has acquired the knowledge of the
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fallen nature of
human beings, the reason why
he and all men
perversely destroy themselves : innocence is only ignorance .
Ralph realises that he is unable to stop the “fun and games” that have
taken over in the island but he , through struggling to comprehend those
forces, gains something approaching heroic stature. With this knowledge
he does survive With his “education” Ralph may go back to society, a
saner, wiser individual , just like the Wedding Guest is at the end of
the Rime of the Ancient Mariner “ a sadder and a wiser man, he
rose the morrow morn”.
THEMES : 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.
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 free from the fetters of society, 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.
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 guiltless 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
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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.
Biblical Parallels
Many critics have characterized Lord of the Flies as a retelling of episodes from the Bible, a they think the
novel does echo certain Christian images and themes.
Golding does not make any explicit or direct connections to Christian symbolism in Lord of the Flies; instead, these
biblical parallels add thematic resonance to the main ideas of the story.
The island itself, particularly Simon’s glade in the forest, recalls the Garden of Eden in its status as an originally
pristine place that is corrupted by the introduction of evil..
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Simon recalls the figure of Jesus as among the boys, Simon is the one who arrives at the moral truth of the
novel, and the other boys kill him sacrificially as a consequence of having discovered this truth. Simon’conversation
with the Lord of the Flies also parallels the confrontation between Jesus and the devil during Jesus’ forty days in
the wilderness, as told in the Christian Gospels.However, it is important to remember that the parallels between
Simon and Christ are not complete, and that there are limits to reading Lord of the Flies purely as a Christian
allegory. So:
i.
although Simon is wise in many ways, his death does not bring salvation to the island; rather, his
death plunges the island deeper into savagery and moral guilt.
ii.
moreover, Simon dies before he is able to tell the boys the truth he has discovered. Jesus, in
contrast, was killed while spreading his moral philosophy. In this way, Simon—and Lord of the
Flies as a whole—echoes Christian ideas and themes without developing explicit, precise
parallels with them. The novel’s biblical parallels enhance its moral themes but are not
necessarily the primary key to interpreting the story
QUESTIONS
1.
Why can Lord of the Flies be considered an
2.
allegorigal novel ?
“ Maybe there is a beast...maybe it’s only us”
Simon’s words explain what mankind’s essential
illness is. Give reasons.
3.
5.
Compare and contrast Ralph and Simon. Both
4.
Explain how the expression “ fun and games” which
seem to be “good” characters. Is there a
is repeated throughout the novel acquires different
difference in their goodness?
meaning.
Explain in which way Ralph’s and Piggy’s
6.
What do Ralph and Jack represent?
8.
Can you explain why Simon can be considered a
rationalities are different.
7.
What is the beast symbolic of?
Christ –like figure?
9.
Find similarities and differences between the
experience
British teenagers had in the novels
10. What is the function of the island setting in Lord of
the Flies? Give reasons
the Coral Island and in Lord of Flies .
11. What is the conception of nature in Lord of the
Flies? Give reasons in relation to Wordswoth’s
12. The novel can be interpreted on different levels .
Illustrate at least two possible interpretations.
idea.
13. What biblical allusion can be detected in the
14. Both Ralph in Lord of Flies . and Marlow in Heart of
description of a “snake-like line of savages” and,
Darkness at the end have become, in Coledige ‘s
in Heart of Darkness , the river Congo river “
words “ sadder” and “wiser” human beings. Give
resembling an immense snake” ? Explain its
reasons.
meaning.
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Raffaella Mannori – LORD OF THE FLIES – 2014-2015
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