Lord of the Flies

We see the saying “Children are cruel” taken to the extreme degree in this book.

Society - group of people; corrupts people - people basically good.

If all people are good then the society should be good - society is why they seem good - society teaches morals, right from wrong, ethics, and common decency


“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.” 

-Mark Twain


Ralph - blonde, blue eyes, thin (athletic), Dad is Navy Commander who taught him how to swim at 5, denial, accustomed to depending on adults to solve all problems - explains why he isn’t worried, playing - toy, not real, game, have fun while wait to be found, 

Piggy - fat, asthma, glasses since 3, parents died, lives w/ auntie who owns candy store, excused & overprotected, talks funny - mispronounces words & incorrect grammar, logical, worried, concerned about others, realistic & can deal w/ reality

Symbols - any object, person, place, or action that has meaning in itself and also stands for something larger than itself, such as a quality, an attitude, a belief, or 

a value

Symbols from the story 

  1. The conch - meeting, democracy, authority, order

  2. The dead pilot - man’s inhumanity; man’s ultimate end

  3. The spectacles (glasses) - logic, reasoning, “seeing” - understanding; the ability to see clearly and perceive what is best - irony - the kid who needs glasses can “see” better than the kids who have perfect vision

Tool - left over from civilization (not natural to this environment) - needed to start the fire - dependence on civilization

  1. Jack’s Painted Face/the masks - savage, barbarian, regressing to uncivilized behavior, lowers standards - hidden - act on impulse without it reflecting on them; façade; means of hiding even from yourself

  2. The fire - hope - restoration to civilization, gives them purpose, goal; light - comfort, security, warmth, provides means of cooking food, protection; order - fire maintained as long as order reigns over; community; celebration

  3. Lord of the Flies - Satan, temptation, decay, destruction p.163-165

  4. Island - A microcosm of the worldAllegorical aspects 

    Allegory - characters and events are symbols expressing a truth about human life

    • A tale in prose or verse in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas or moral qualities

    1. The Moral Allegory - Ralph (common sense) tries to balance Piggy (intellect), Jack (emotions), and Simon (soul) and fails - plunging the world into chaos and turning himself into a brute, becoming the haunted prey.

    2. The Social Allegory - 

      1. Ralph (government/face/figure/head) tries to balance Jack (power/emotions/heart), Piggy (technology/brain/mind/intellect), and Simon (humanism/soul/empathy) and fails - power/emotions warps technology/mind, destroys humanism/soul, and attempts to abolish government/figure head.

    3. The Religious Allegory - Ralph (Everyman), with hope of salvation, demeans Piggy (intellect) and can’t understand SImon (spiritual truth). In fact, Ralph helps to kill spiritual truth because of his physical appetites and his desire to consort with violence and thrill seeking, which he has allowed to flourish by letting Jack (unreasoning carnality/fleshly desire) corrupt the choir. Ralph cringes hopelessly and helplessly, a fallen creature as hell fires advance

    Simon - Christ-like figure 

    1. Different - he is laughed at, made fun of, rejected by the choir (of which he is a part of) p. 17

    2.  Name - SImon is Hebrew (Parallel to Simon Peter - Greek “Petros” for rock). Simon’s little chapel was a rock - he gave Ralph faith he would be saved, standing on a rock. When Ralph says, “Oh God, Oh God,” Simon answers. He later answers thoughts in Ralph’s mind. “You’ll get back.” (Notice that he doesn't say “we.”) P. 125-126 (foreshadowing - Ralph will make it; Simon won’t)

    3. He supports Ralph not Jack. He helps, he builds p. 58 “always about

    4. He is not afraid. Knows the beast is not real. He has no evil in him; therefore, he doesn’t fear “the beast.” p. 98-99 “laughter beat him cruelly”

      1. “The beast” is really the evil that exists within the human heart. “mankind’s  essential illness”

      2. Nothing more evil than the human heart

      3. Out of the mouth comes the evil of the heart. He stands between Ralph and Jack - good and evil. He does not interfere - free will. P. 102-104

      4. He sticks up for Piggy and shares his first meat with him. “We used his specs… He helped that was” P. 43

      5. He feeds the children in a scene like Paradise or the feeding of the 5000      P. 59

      6. He goes off by himself in the little hidden spot (bower) he finds. P. 60 in the creepers - vines

      7. He is tempted, as if by the devil, to forget the truth and join the others. 

      P. 157, 163-165

      1. Simon climbs the mountain to get the truth, sees death and frees the parachute. P. 168 (staggers carrying truth - his cross - down to the others)

      2. He goes down and is killed by the boys who do not hear his words of truth and reassurance. His crucifixion P. 175

      3. Simon taken out by the tide - burial or ascension into Heaven. P. 175-176


      There are two trains of thought during the time that Golding writes Lord of the Flies - 

      1. Man-good-corrupted by society

      2. Man is born with inner evil or darkness & bc man creates & runs society, society is corrupt

        1. In this view it is man who is corrupt & society that is trying to train people to be good


      Role of Adults - 

      • Setting - during an imaginary atomic war - evacuate kids from heavily bombed areas (like London does during WWII - The lion, the witch, and the Wardrobe - Golding serves in this war)

        • Kids are the purest form of human nature; therefore, he separates them from all adults to see their natural instincts. (This is why there are no adults on the island.)

        • These children have been civilized.socialized t a degree (they have been taught right from wrong to this point)

        • Yet - they digress entirely - or would have if they had not been rescued prior to killing RalphAdult at the end reminds us that the people on the island are kids because he thinks they are playing a game and describes Jack as “a little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap on  his red hair and who carried the remains of a pair of spectacles at his waist” P. 234 (We had forgotten they are kids bc they are killing)

        • Adults in the story are also at war - reiterated that man is not naturally good - kids on island doing exactly the same thing adults are doing that made it necessary to put the kids on the plane in the first place