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.