The Lord of the Flies

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The Lord of the Flies
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William Golding

• 1911-1993
• Golding writes in reaction to WWII and that evil
  is within everyone in some aspect.
• Navy 1940-1945
• D-day
• man produces evil, as a bee produces honey.
• Humanity as inherently evil

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William Golding

• Writes during Cold War
• Environment of fear and rapid advances in
  technology
• Sacrifice of morals for a dictatorship
• Great violence and death taking place
• Atomic Bomb, Nazi Germany Great Depression
• Golding feels that the violent brutality can be
  present in other groups

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William Golding

• Golding thought human nature was equal parts good
  and evil
• Against the rationalists thought of humanity
  being perfected
• Instead of social reform to cure humanity of its
  cruelty, a breakdown in social order would lead
  to moral meltdown of the individual

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William Golding

• Also comment on post-war confidence in technology
  
• Also relates to Rationalists thought of humanity
  being perfected
• Included in advances was the field of psychiatry
• Explained emotional disturbances in a logical way
  
• Piggy

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The Lord of the Flies

• 3 key aspects
• (1) The desire for social and political order
  through parliaments, governments, and
  legislatures
• platform and the conch
• (2) The natural inclination toward evil and
  violence, manifested in every country's need for
  a military
• choir-boys-turned-hunters-turned-murderers and in
  the war going on in the world beyond the island
• (3) The belief in supernatural or divine
  intervention in human destiny
• ceremonial dances and sacrifices intended to
  appease the "beast"

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William Golding

• Published 1954
• Noble Prize for Literature in 1983
• Group of British schoolboys marooned on a
  tropical island after plane is shot down (war)
• Evil nature vs. proper civility of British
  culture
• Boys will separate into different factions
• Placed in life experiences and their reactions
• Peaceful, order
• Anarchy, evil

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The Lord of the Flies

• Title is literal translation for Beelzebub
• Themes
• When removed from civilization, humans return to
  primitive beings
• Evil within humans
• The beast is human
• Contrast between evil nature of boys and culture
  of civilization they left