The Lord of the Flies

Image credit: Wheelers Books

Having finally finished my run of modern fantasy with the Artemis Fowl series, I felt that a complete 180 degree shift was required in my choice of book this week, and so I jumped down the tropical, dystopian rabbit-hole with a classic that apparently everyone –except me- has read because they studied it in school. Such a classic, it’s even been immortalised by The Simpsons, I’m talking about William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies.

The story takes place in England during the Second World War and chronicles the horrifying adventures of a group of schoolboys whose plane is shot down and crashes on a deserted tropical island. At first the boys retain their social dignity and elect a level-headed leader, Ralph, but soon a rift forms between Ralph and the charismatic hunter, Jack, who rebels and forms his own tribe of savages. Soon the island is in complete chaos as the boys become progressively terrified of their situation and convinced that there’s a terrible beast on the island, and their world collapses as rules and morals get replaced with violence and savagery.

I can understand why this has been a schoolroom staple, seemingly for forever. It’s a narrative analyst’s dream featuring everything from the dichotomy between good and evil, exploration into the conflicting sides of human nature, and the fun/frustration of the unreliable narrator.

In terms of genre, The Lord of the Flies sits in a circle of its own, but there are many aspects of it that remind us of the horror genre, in particular the zombie film. The breakdown of society is the biggest example of this, with social and moral structure and cooperation becoming completely corrupted and decayed away by fear and desperation. However, where the real shock value comes into play is the fact that the fear (the real beast on the island) is not necessarily what causes the great divide. Indeed with the characters being a bunch of children and pre-pubescent boys, the central rift between Ralph and Jack comes from childish jealousy. While Ralph gets elected fair and square, his earnestness and desperation to convey the seriousness of their situation quickly gets distasteful and Jack swoops in with promises of playing games of hunting, as thought they were the Lost Boys in Peter Pan. Jack’s desire for leadership and his charisma gain him a tribe, but the combination of fear and frenzy soon turns the ‘game’ deadly.

Despite the fact that the book is written in the third person with an omniscient narrator, it still plays delicately with that very Gothic horror theme of the unreliable narrator, as the readers are given no real insight into how long the boys are on the island, therefore no real idea as to how long it takes for the moral and social decay to take place. For all we know, all of this could have only happened within a matter of days!

Image credit: Wikipedia

And what makes this all the more fascinating (and horrifying) is that it was inspired by Golding’s own experiences during WWII, when he actually witnessed isolated savagery amongst desperate men unbound by the rules of civilised society. The quest to immediately gratify desires without forethought is heavily explored in this book and, being published at a time when there was much public concern about the destructive nature of humans, its horror and popularity soared.

Lord of the Flies is definitely one of the most provocative books that I have read. It’s raw and terrifying and I absolutely adored it! It’s a true classic of literature.

Author: William Golding, 1954

Published: Faber & Faber (London)

Longevity: The book was adapted into a film in 1963, directed by Peter Brooks. Golding won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983.