Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Lord of the flies by William Golding

William Golding is a well-known author from Cornwall, England. As a kid he already wanted to be an author and after his second year at Oxford he changed his studies to English literature. In 1954 he published his first novel Lord of the flies, witch later on became his biggest success. He also received the Noble Prize for literature in 1983 for this novel. Golding experienced the dark conflict between ordering elements of the society and humanity’s instinctual desire of power after serving as a rocket-launcher under World War II. This set the theme of his best selling novel.

Imagine being deserted on an island after your plane with you and your classmates got shot down during the war. No adults surviving, just you and the rest of the boys in your age. This is how this novel begins. The surviving boys are lost and scattered around on the island after the crash. The island is in the middle of nowhere and isolated form civilization. It contains large forests, some small mountains, a lagoon and a beach. There is a small amount of animal life on the island which at least gives them the chance to get some meat. Ralph, a fir-haired boy wanders along the lagoon until he meets another boy named Piggy. They discover a cream-colored conch shell, which Ralph uses as a trumpet to summon the rest of the boys. Jack and his older choirboys meet up with the other boys. Ralph is elected as a leader and it’s decided that whoever holds the conch shell is allowed to speak. This sets the foundation of a civilized structure among the boys. Everyone is given a task to fulfil and everything is organized. The fist conflict appears when Jack and his choirboys were supposed to keep the signal fire lit, but instead went out hunting. When a ship passes the island there is no way to get their attention now that the fire is out. This starts a conflict between Ralph and Jack. The conflict gets bigger and bigger throughout the story. Jack is only focusing on hunting and keeps being mean to Piggy because of his chubby body and glasses. The boys also think there is a beast hiding on the island, which is actually the silhouette of a dead pilot hanging by his parachute from a tree. With the conflict between the two boys getting worse and worse, Jack declares himself the leader of his own new tribe. This tribe consists of violent hunting and brutal primitive behaviour. Most of the boys are joining Jack, mostly because Ralph has now lost his control over his civilized structure and all the young boys thinks Jack is the most dominant leader. The other boys, under Jacks command, are hunting Ralph at the end. A boulder that got pushed over by one of the boys kills piggy. Ralph gets saved at the last moment when he meets a uniformed officer at the beach. His ship had noticed the big fire burning in the jungle.

In this novel the main characters Ralph, Jack