Lord Of The Flies.

Lord Of The Flies.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding is one of the most popular and endearing books of the twentieth century.  In part a morality tale, in part an analysis of the human psyche, it is also a supremely interesting and exciting adventure story.  All of these combined elements make the book a true classic and a perennial audience favourite.  The book also demonstrates its significance to today’s audiences via the many references made of it in popular culture.  Artists as divergent as U2, who named a song after one of the book’s chapters, through to the creators of cult TV drama ‘Lost’ pay testament to the value and resonance of William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’.
Within its pages we see drama, tension, horror, cruelty and the extraordinary complexities that can occur when people are forced into unique situations.  This encourages the audience to philosophically engage with the book and look more deeply into it to find answers to the questions it poses “That work was Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. The book was the first novel that caused me to reflect for longer than I read” (Dalrymple, T, 2005)
A plane crash strands a group of British schoolboys on an unknown island. In a society now shorn of traditional authority figures, it is up to the abandoned boys to establish some kind of working system to guide them through the dangers, inevitably inherent, in their new, unchartered existence.  The difficulties they encounter lead to violence and separatism and death.  At the beginning of the novel we are introduced to the key characters Ralph, Piggy and Jack.   Ralph and Jack are almost immediately engaged in a struggle for power thus emphasising one of Lord of the Flies’ key features, which is its ability to effectively mirror adult situations.  In this case it can be seen as indicative of a wider human inclination to become ‘top-dog’.
Lord of the Flies is a novel that is filled with tension and drama. Defeated by Ralph in the election battle, Jack instead turns his attention to other, more dynamically fierce pursuits and becomes in charge of an almost-crazed hunting division of boys, thus finding a way to both proclaim his importance and issue a challenge to the incumbent as he satisfies his thirst for power in gradually more ominous and violent ways.