The story takes a look at what would happen if a group of British school boys were to become stranded on an island. At first the boys have good intentions, keep a fire going so that a passing ship can see the smoke and rescue them, however because of the inherent evil of the many the good intentions of the few are quickly passed over for more exciting things. The killing of a pig slowly begins to take over the boys life, and they begin to go about this in a ritualistic way, dancing around the dead animal and chanting. As this thirst for blood begins to spread the group is split into the "rational (the fire-watchers) pitted against the irrational (the hunters) (Dick 121)." The fear of a mythological "beast" is perpetuated by the younger members of the groups and they are forced to do something about it. During one of the hunters' celebrations around the kill of an animal a fire-watcher stumbles in to try and disband the idea of the monster. Caught o

Lord of the Flies, one of William Golding's many novels, is a well written, well thought out writing that depicts the evils of human nature. William Golding the man himself is qualified enough to write about such topics because he was involved heavily in W.W.II. This caused Golding's views on life to change to his current philosophy "The shape of society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable (Baker 5)." The frame work of a Golding novel is simple and most often copied from an outside source, then reshape to fit his purpose. Finally I think Wilfrid Sheed said it best when he said "Golding's writing is not ideally suited to a social novel - it is angular and ugly and the dialogue occasionally sounds immature." As a matter of opinion though I would recommend Lord of the Flies to anyone.

Despite being heavily involved in the war efforts during the second world war, Golding managed to not become a war novelist, this does however, somewhat explain why most of the conflicts in his books are basic struggles between people. "He [Golding] entered the Royal Navy at the age of twenty-nine in December 1940, and after a period of service on mine sweepers, destroyers, and cruisers, he became a lieutenant in command of his own rocketship (Baker xiii)." So many of the authors of his time used the war as the back ground or main conflict in their books, but not Golding, he is able to use the war as his inspiration and write about the most primitive and basic struggles that man has. One must not think that Golding did not go unchanged from the war, because analysis of his pre-war poetry shows a much softer, more forgiving Golding.

Sheed, Wilfrid "William Golding: The Py

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Approximate Word count = 1180
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)