William Golding

William Golding, bestselling English author, is famous for his dystopian novel, Lord of the Flies, translated into more than thirty-five languages. He is also known for his complex symbolism and themes of the struggle between good and evil.

William Golding, born in Cornwall, England on September 19, 1911, was raised in a fourteenth century house located next door to a graveyard. From an early age, Golding believed he would grow up to become an author, unsuccessfully attempting to write a novel at the age of twelve. As a child he would bully his classmates in grammar school, describing himself as “a brat who enjoyed hurting people.” His mother was a suffragette, fighting for a right to vote, and his father taught science at Marlborough Grammar School.

Golding went on to Brasenose College in Oxford to read Natural Science. After taking examinations in botany, zoology, chemistry, and physics, Golding transferred to English Literature, enjoying reading works by Angelo-Saxon. He graduated college in 1934 with B.A. Honors, returning three years later to study for a Dip.Ed. The next five years after college, Golding worked in settlement houses and small theaters, acting, directing, and writing.

He became a teacher in 1935, working at Michael Hall, a Steiner school for two years. In 1938, he took a job at Maidstone Grammar School. Finally he settled at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in 1940, working until the sales from Lord of the Flies allowed him to resign in 1962, becoming a full-time writer.

William Golding joined the Royal Navy in 1940. He spent six years on boat with the exception of six months in the Naval Research Establishment, assisting Lord Cherwell in the weapons research unit. He was also sent to New York for s...

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...ideas in the novel are based on Golding’s experience with the brutality of World War II, and ten years of teaching disobedient children.

Since its publication, the novel has become known as a classic, discussed and analyzed in classrooms all around the world. Golding wrote the novel without poetic language, long descriptions, or philosophical interludes. The characters and objects in the novel have symbolic significance that communicate the novel’s main theme and ideas.

Lord of the Flies was interpreted in different ways. Several readers in the 1950’s believed that it dramatized the history of civilization, while others thought that the novel explored religious issues. Many readers saw it through the theories of Sigmund Freud, a psychoanalyst. Freud thought that “the human mind was the site of a constant battle among different impulses, the id, ego, and superego.”