Why should you read “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding? - Jill Dash
William Golding was losing
his faith in humanity.
Serving aboard a British destroyer
in World War II,
the philosophy teacher turned Royal Navy
lieutenant was constantly confronted
by the atrocities of his fellow man.
And when he returned to England
to find Cold War superpowers
threatening one another
with nuclear annihilation,
he was forced to interrogate
the very roots of human nature.
These musings on the inevitability
of violence
would inspire his first and most famous
novel: "Lord of the Flies."
After being rejected by 21 publishers,
the novel was finally published in 1954.
It takes its title from Beelzebub,
a demon associated with pride and war—
two themes very much
at the heart of Golding’s book.
The novel was a bleak satire
of a classic island adventure story,
a popular genre where young boys
get shipwrecked in exotic locations.
The protagonists in these stories
are able to master nature
while evading the dangers
posed by their new environments.
The genre also endorsed
the problematic colonialist narrative
found in many British works at the time,
in which the boys teach the island’s
native inhabitants
their allegedly superior British values.
Golding’s satire even goes so far
as to explicitly use the setting
and character names from R.M. Ballantyne’s
"Coral Island"—
one of the most beloved
island adventure novels.
But while Ballantyne’s book
promised readers
"pleasure... profit... and unbounded
amusement,”
Golding’s had darker things in store.
"Lord of the Flies" opens
with the boys already on the island,
but snippets of conversation hint
at their terrifying journey—
their plane had been shot down in
the midst of an unspecified nuclear war.
The boys, ranging in age from 6 to 13,
are strangers to each other.
All except for a choir, clad in black
uniforms and led by a boy named Jack.
Just as in Ballantyne’s "Coral Island,"
the boy’s new home appears
to be a paradise—
with fresh water, shelter,
and abundant food sources.
But even from the novel’s opening pages,
a macabre darkness hangs over
this seemingly tranquil situation.
The boys’ shadows are compared
to “black, bat-like creatures”
while the choir itself first appears as
“something dark... fumbling along”
the beach.
Within hours of their arrival,
the boys are already trading terrifying
rumors of a vicious “beastie”
lurking in the woods.
From these ominous beginnings,
Golding’s narrative reveals
how quickly cooperation unravels
without the presence
of an adult authority.
Initially, the survivors try
to establish some sense of order.
A boy named Ralph blows into a conch shell
to assemble the group,
and delegate tasks.
But as Jack vies
for leadership with Ralph,
the group splinters
and the boys submit to their darker urges.
The mob of children soon forgets
their plans for rescue,
silences the few voices of reason,
and blindly follows Jack to the edge
of the island, and the edge of sanity.
The novel’s universal themes
of morality, civility, and society
have made it a literary classic,
satirizing both conventions of its time
and long held beliefs about humanity.
While island adventure stories
often support colonialism,
"Lord of the Flies"
turns this trope on its head.
Rather than cruelly casting native
populations as stereotypical savages,
Golding transforms his angelic British
schoolboys into savage caricatures.
And as the boys fight
their own battle on the island,
the far more destructive war
that brought them there
continues off the page.
Even if the boys were to be rescued
from themselves,
what kind of world would
they be returning to?
With so few references
to anchor the characters
in a specific place or period,
the novel feels truly timeless—
an examination of human nature
at its most bare.
And though not all readers
may agree with Golding’s grim view,
"Lord of the Flies" is unsettling enough
to challenge even the most
determined optimist.
