Lord of the Flies

By William Golding

What should you come to understand by the end of this unit?

• There is a little bit of evil in all of us.• The true nature of humans has

perplexed thinkers for thousands of years.

• Novelists often use their fiction to make statements about their personal or political beliefs.

Essential questions…• What is our true human

nature?• Why do people disagree

about our true human nature?

• How does Golding use setting and characters in Lord of the Flies to express his ideas about people?

Lord of the Flies facts• Most of the characters, actions and

objects in the novel symbolize larger ideas

• Golding’s novel deals with the conflict between the rational mind and natural instinct

• Golding believed that people were instinctively evil and society was needed to protect humans from each other.

The novel takes place during a fictional nuclear war.

A group of British schoolboys are flown out of their country to “protect” them from the horrors of war.

Lord of the Flies continued

However, their plane crashes, killing all the adults on board.

The boys remain stranded on the tropical island to fend for

themselves…

Lord of the Flies continued

William Golding

• September 19, 1911- 1983 in Cornwall, England

• Enlisted in the Royal Navy during WWII. This is where he lost his belief that men were inherently good.

William Golding cont.• After war went back

to teaching and began writing novels on the side.

• Lord of the Flies published in 1954

• 1983 Nobel Peace Prize in Literature

Literary Terms

Allegory - characters, settings and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or

qualities

Symbolism - representing things by means of symbols or of attributing meanings or significance

to objects, events, or relationships

SymbolismPiggy

• when reason is destroyed, so is law and order

SymbolismPiggy’s Glasses

• human intelligence and perceptivity—open to misuse and easily destroyed

• the link to civilization• they show Piggy’s impaired ability. While Piggy knows or sees

more than Ralph, he does not see the total situation on the island

• the degeneration of their society

SymbolismSimon

• represents the highest aspirations of the human spirit towards beauty and holiness

• participates in a symbolic dialogue with the Lord of the Flies

SymbolismLord of the Flies

• represents the lowest part of man, the source of violence, hatred, fear, murder.

• The meeting with Simon represents the recognition of these forces in all men, even the saintly.

SymbolismThe Conch Shell

• law and order, stability,communication• brings the boys out of isolation so they can

become a group, a civilization, where they can think together. It calls them away from primitiveness and toward awareness.

SymbolismThe Chant, “Kill the pig. Cut her throat . ..”

• The increasing powers of evil.

• a formalization of the destructive passions that exist in the boys. It gives these passions an outlet. This, however, is dangerous because the more these passions are indulged, the more violent they become.

SymbolismFire

• represents a hope for the future, hope for humanity

• a contrast to the symbol of darkness that represents the barbarism within the boys

SymbolismJack’s Knife

• associated with vengeance, death, sacrifice• the short blade of the knife represents the

primacy of the man wielding it (whereas the long blade of a sword illustrates the spiritual height of a swordsman)

SymbolismThe British Officer

• authority that the boys have shown they needed on the island

• the weakness, destructiveness, and hypocrisy of the society from which he comes.

What do you know about Beelzebub?

Beelzebub comes from a Greek word that means ‘lord of

flies’

It is another name for the devil.

The Title of the Novel

• a translation of Beelzebub, the name of a devil• suggests that the boys are like flies, mere

instinctive beings swarming to the kill

Character AnalysisRalph

• symbolizes rational leadership• fights against the superstition and terror • recognizes the universal presence of evil as a

condition of life• most complete, most human, and most heroic

of the characters

Character Analysis

Jack• the Satanic and deathly force coming to

confront the divine and life giving man of light a diabolical force, plunging the boys into a chaos of brute activities

• symbolizes anarchy of the human soul

Character AnalysisPiggy

• The intellectual

• He represents an attitude of mind that is conservative and civilized

• with his build, his nickname "Piggy," and his squealing, he resembles the sacrificial pig

Character AnalysisSimon

• willing to work and brave in the face of physical danger

• does not share the fears of the other boys because he feels that the spirit world does not hold any terrors

Character AnalysisSimon

• symbolizes rationality• discovers, that even he himself contains a

destructive evil• right in saying that the only "beasts" are the ones

that people create

Character AnalysisRoger

• A furtive, quiet boy, who evolves into a torturer and terrorist

• Where Jack acts in fury, Roger performs his treacheries with cool detachment

• he fears nothing• represents the complete death of

conscience