Critical Commentary and Symbolism of William Golding´s Lord of the Flies

The Will To Persevere

The novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, intertwines a compassionate message to the people of Great Britain and the world, while also showing the evil nature that all humans have deep down inside. At the time that this book was being written, communism was in full effect, eclipsing the good of the world, creating the illusion that this Earth is being consumed by evil. The worst of this would be the Stalinism in Russia, a complete and utter totalitarian dictatorship where the people had virtually no say in the government, this was along with the evil ways of Hitler. Golding created the novel Lord of the Flies to show that humans will do whatever it takes to persevere through any situation and to send a message of hope to the people of the world.

In this novel, a plane carrying children up to the age of 12 are abandoning a brutal war back in England. During the flight, the plane is shot down and deserted in an island in the Pacific Ocean, and with no parents or adults around, the kids are left to survive on their own. Upon crashing, the boys nominate a chief, named Ralph, who basically acts as the leader and mentor to the children. As you would imagine, fear begins to instill in the young children’s hearts as they realize there is a “beast” on the island with them. Before they are hunted, they decide it is time for them to begin to hunt for food in order to survive. While the boys go out to hunt, Ralph and Simon began to build a shelter.

As time progresses, the boys who are supposed to be tending the fire, skip out on their duties to kill a pig. While they finally begin to feel like kids again in the midst of this bloody adventure, the fire went out back at camp and a ship passed by without no...

... middle of paper ...

... dead. Simon's body is washed out to sea that night, and the wind carries off the body of the dead parachuting man. Ralph and Piggy realize the mistake that they have committed and begin to convince themselves that they didn't take part in murdering Simon.

Jack's crew summons an attack on Ralph and Piggy and steal Piggy's eye-glasses to make a fire. When Ralph and Piggy decide to calmly talk it out with the brutes that were originally their friends, a kid named Roger, pushes a boulder off a cliff, killing Piggy. Ralph ends up running for his life and finds out that there's a head-on-a-stick future planned for him like the mother pig. After about a mile of running, Ralph stumbles upon the shore of the island where he runs into an officer of the British Navy. The surviving boys are rescued from their mini civil war and are set to return to their homeland of Britain.