How the Second World War Reflects in Lord of the Flies

The date is 1954, just a few years after the end of World War Two, the great war still fresh and painful in the eyes of those living; on bookshelves stands the published novel by William Golding titled Lord of the Flies. This novel was written to tell the tale of a group of young boys stranded on an island after their plane crashes sometime after their departure of their evacuation for precaution from London, England. The idea of actual evacuation was only talked about and experimented on even if a plan of action was made if the need ever really arose. Those would would be evacuated would be mothers, children, and the handicapped from vulnerable ares such as London, England, which was hit harshly during the Blitz of 1940 where Germany bombed the city every night continuously for an entire year. The boys of this novel was evacuated because of that blitz and just as any reader would assume, a leader would be necessary, and two will come to power unable to stand for or be under the ruling of each other with views so completely different. This sounds awfully familiar for being a novel published a few years after World War Two ended. These leaders, Ralph and Jack, along with fellow evacuees, Maurice, Rodger, Piggy, and even the little children, all correlate to great leaders and their followers during World War Two.

Ralph is the all-mighty protagonist of the novel and in the relation to World War Two, would best represent the powerful Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of England. England, after World War One, became stronger, fair, and a major leader more than ever. It adopted universal suffrage for all in the first time in history (Fraser), and that being, is very important in it's role. Ralph is much like Chamberlain and Eng...

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...ould not have to fight, not get involved. The group of adolescences in the novel portrayed the novel are a best fit for the major leaders of the Second World War: Chamberlain and Hitler and his officers along with Simon and Piggy symbolizing the Jewish community which Hitler blamed for all of Germany’s problems.

Works Cited

John Simkin “Adolf Hitler” Spartacus Educational. September 1997. Web. 19 March 2014.

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “Neville Chamberlain” Encyclopedia Britannica. 26 January 2014. Web. 19 March 2014.

The Editors of Encclopedia Britannica. “SS (Corps of Nazi Party)” Encyclopedia Britannica. 27 December 2013. Web. 19 March 2014.

Rebecca Fraser. “Overview: Britain 1918-1945” BBC. 2014. Web. 19 March 2014.

The Editors of Legacy Publishing. “Europe After WWI: Nov 1918-Aug 1031” How Stuff Works. 13 September 2007. Web. 19 March 2014.