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| Author | William Golding |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Pentagram |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Allegorical novel |
| Publisher | Faber & Faber |
| Publication date | 1955 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Paperback & Hardback) |
| Pages | 248 pp (first edition, paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-571-05686-5 (first edition, paperback) Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
| Followed by | The Inheritors (William Golding) |
Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding. It discusses how culture created by man fails and how man shall always turn to barbarism, using parallels of a group of school-boys stuck on a deserted island who unsuccessfully try to govern themselves and consequently have disastrous results. Its stances on the already controversial subjects of human nature and individual welfare versus the common good earned it position 70 on the American Library Association's list of the 100 most frequently challenged Books of 1990–2000. The novel was chosen by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present.
Published in 1954, Lord of the Flies was Golding's first novel, and although it was not a great success at the time — selling fewer than three thousand copies in the United States during 1955 before going out of print — it soon went on to become a bestseller, and by the early 1960s was required reading in many schools and colleges. It was adapted to film in 1963 by Peter Brook, and again in 1990 by Harry Hook.
The title is said to be a reference to a line from King Lear - "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods, — They kill us for their sport". (King Lear Act IV, Scene 1) It may also be a reference to the Hebrew name Beelzebub (בעל זבוב, Baal-zvuv, "god of the fly", "host of the fly" or literally "Lord of Flies"), a name sometimes used as a synonym for Satan.
Plot summary
The story begins with a large number of boys, ages 6 to 12, stranded on a tropical island with no tools to survive, except for a knife. They were being evacuated from a war and their plane had been shot down. The first two characters are Ralph, an athletic and charismatic boy with fair hair, and "Piggy," a fat boy with glasses who also suffers from asthma. The two boys obtain a conch shell and use it to call the other boys from across the island. The boys begin to discuss who should be their leader. Ralph is chosen by vote, but one other potential leader arises — Jack Merridew. Jack was a choir leader and still acts as leader of all the other castaway members of his choir. Ralph is elected as leader but because Ralph senses the threat, he elects Jack to be the leader of the hunters (his choir). Piggy is the least popular of the boys but is intelligent and becomes Ralph's "lieutenant," having civilized values but no way to carry them out. However, it is evident that Jack covets the leadership position. Then, Ralph takes Jack and Simon to explore the island. During their exploration they find a trapped piglet. Jack pulls out a knife but hesitates to kill the piglet, and it escapes. Jack vows never to hesitate again. Early on, the boys are full of optimism and expect the island to be fun, despite the fact that many of the boys are scared of a "Beast" — allegedly some kind of dangerous wild animal on the island seen by one of the younger boys with a birthmark on his face.
The boys then make their first attempt at being rescued by starting a signal fire, lit by Piggy's glasses. The fire burns without control and scorches a good portion of the island. The boy with a birthmark on his face who saw the Beast goes missing during the fire and is never seen again.
The major characters Jack and Ralph have conflicting aims for the island; life on the island begins to deteriorate and becomes more and more disorganized. The island's descent into chaos starts, ironically, with the potential for rescue by a passing ship. Jack had led a group off hunting and took with him the boys who were tending to the signal fire, so the fire died out, resulting in the ship sailing past without knowing of the boys on the island. An intense argument ensues in which one lens of Piggy's glasses is broken. Although the signal fire is maintained along with a false sense of security, the order among the boys quickly deteriorates as Jack and Ralph continue to struggle for power. Jack has a way to tell people what they want to hear, and Ralph soon loses control over his friends.
As the novel takes place during a war, a dogfight between two planes occurs over the island. One of the pilots parachutes out of his plane but dies upon or before landing. Sam and Eric assume that the pilot is the Beast when they see him in the dark, causing mass panic. An expedition to investigate leads to Ralph, Jack, and Roger ascending the mountain, but they eventually run away from what they believe is the Beast. Jack denounces Ralph as a coward and calls for another election for chief but does not receive a single vote. He leaves the group to create a new tribe. Most of the older boys eventually leave Ralph's tribe to join Jack's tribe. Jack becomes a tyrant on "Castle Rock" with his followers, whom Ralph thinks of as "the savages."
The new tribe hunts down and slaughters a mother sow, crossing the line from hunters to savages, and Jack decides to host a feast. Before that, they sever the pig's head and place it on a stick as an "offering" to the Beast. Flies swarm around the head of the pig. Simon comes across it, only to have a hallucination. He hears the dead pig (or self proclaimed 'Lord of the Flies') speaking to him and telling him to do things. Discovering that the "beast" is in fact the evil in every human being, he runs down from the mountain to break the news. However, when he arrives, it is raining terribly, and while the little ones are screaming and running around, the other boys, who were worked up in their war dance, mistake Simon for the beast and tear, bite, and claw him to death.
Ralph's tribe dwindles in number. Jack's larger, less civilized tribe, however, needs to steal from them to maintain their existence. They steal Piggy's glasses to light a fire. Piggy demands his glasses back but is killed by a boulder Roger launches at Ralph, which crushes him and the conch shell and sends him off a cliff. Jack's tribe captures Sam and Eric and forces them to join their tribe. Jack tries and fails to kill Ralph, and the next day, his tribe tries to hunt him down. In doing this, they set a forest fire, which is seen by a passing naval vessel, and one of the ship's officers comes ashore in a boat and rescues Ralph and the boys. Ralph declares to the captain of the ship that it is he who is the leader of the children and for the first time on the island, Ralph cries. The marine officer turns his face away from Ralph and all the weeping children and stares at the horizon of the sea, where his naval vessel also shines in grey and silver.
Allusions/references to other works
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The Coral Island
In 1857, R.M. Ballantyne wrote a book called The Coral Island. It portrayed three boys: Ralph, Peterkin and Jack (two of these names are transferred to Golding's book; Peterkin is altered to Simon) landing on an island, much like that in Lord of the Flies. They have great adventures, typical of much children's fiction written during the period of the British Empire. It was very successful.
Golding read The Coral Island as he was growing up, and thought of Ballantyne as racist, since the book teaches that evil is associated with black skin and is external. In Chapter 11 of the original Lord of the Flies, Piggy calls Jack's tribe "a pack of painted niggers." The term was not viewed as offensive in 1950s British society as it is today, being seen as a descriptive (rather than abusive) term for people of dark skin. In any case, the word was changed to "savages" in some editions and "Indians" in the mass media publication.
A number of references to The Coral Island are made in Lord of the Flies. To a certain extent, it can be said that Golding wrote this book as a response to The Coral Island, to show what boys would truly do if left alone on an island and to compare two different versions of boys' activities when left on their own. In Chapter 2, the boys speculate about what will happen, saying it will be "like in a book", mentioning "Treasure Island", "Swallows and Amazons" and "Coral Island". When the officer is on the island at the end he says "like the Coral Island".
Film Adaptations
There have been two film adaptations.
- Lord of the Flies (1963), directed by Peter Brook.
- Lord of the Flies (1990), directed by Harry Hook.
Lord of the Flies in popular culture
Lord of the Flies has influenced or inspired multiple cultural works.
Literature
Writers have borrowed plot elements from Lord of the Flies. Robert A. Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky, published in 1955, can be seen as a rebuttal to Lord of the Flies as it concerns a group of teenagers stranded on an alien world who manage to create a functional tribal society.
Stephen King has stated that the Castle Rock in Lord of the Flies was the inspiration for the town of the same name that has appeared in a number of his novels. The book itself also appears prominently in his novels Hearts in Atlantis and Cujo. King's fictional town in turn inspired the name of Rob Reiner's production company, Castle Rock Entertainment.
Television
Lord of the Flies inspired Sunrise Animation's classic anime series Infinite Ryvius, which follows the lives of nearly 500 teenagers stranded aboard a space battleship.
Lord of the Flies has been referenced multiple times in The Simpsons. The episode "Das Bus" is a parody of the book, with a plotline involving about castaway school children on a deserted island. Many direct references are made to the book, including the use of glasses to make fire, calling meetings with a conch, a monster lurking in the forest of the island, and stronger kids chasing after "the nerds". In another Simpsons episode, Kamp Krusty, the Lord of the Flies novel can be seen in a shot, during a scene related to the takeover of a camp by children.
Lord of the Flies is referenced several times (often jokingly) in the TV drama Lost which is also set on a deserted island where the characters feel they are constantly under the threat of turning wild.
In an interview, the creator of the new reality TV show "Kid Nation" stated that the show is based on the novel, where 40 kids run their town, without adults, for a certain amount of time.
Film
Lord of the Flies has also served as a source of inspiration in film. According to film critic Benjamin Urrutia, the main sequence of Apocalypto – the lone hero being chased through the tropical jungle by fierce spear-wielding hunters, ending with an encounter on the beach by men from the outside world – mirrors the scene from the Lord of the Flies. In addition, a film adaptation of the book was one of the main inspirations for the reality TV show Survivor, according to host Jeff Probst.
Music
- The English heavy metal band Iron Maiden composed a song about the novel, with the title "Lord of the Flies".
- The debut studio album, Boy, by Irish rock band by U2 was loosely based on the novel's theme of childhood corruption, and the final song on the album, "Shadows and Tall Trees," takes its title from the novel's chapter of the same name.
References
- "The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000". American Library Association. 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-27.
- "The Complete List: TIME Magazine – ALL-TIME 100 Novels". TIME. 2005. Retrieved 2007-05-12.
- http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02388c.htm Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Beelzebub]
- Johnson, Arnold (1980). Of Earth and Darkness. The Novels of William Golding. Missouri: University of Missouri Press. p. 132.}}
- Wagner, Thomas M. (2006). "Robert A. Heinlin: Tunnel in the Sky". SF Reviews.net. Retrieved 2007-03-27.
- "Stephen King (1947-)". Authors' Calendar. 2003. Retrieved 2007-03-27.
- Urrutia, Benjamin (2007). "Film Review: Charlotte's Web". The Peaceable Table. 4 (1). Retrieved 2007-03-27.
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External links
- The Lord of the Flies: A Study Guide
- NovelGuide
- SparkNotes
- CliffsNotes
- Lord of the Flies (1963) at IMDb
- Lord of the Flies (1990) at IMDb
- Criterion Collection essay by Peter Brook
- Slashdoc: Lord of the Flies Literary analysis of the novel
- Lord of the Flies: Summary and Significant Events
- Nobelprize.org: Play the Lord of the Flies Game