Lord of the Flies
Summary
Golding's 1954 novel places a group of British schoolboys on an uninhabited island after a plane crash with no adults, and follows their attempt at self-government and its collapse into violence. Golding wrote it against the tradition of adventure stories in which British boys demonstrate civilised competence in such circumstances, and specifically against R. M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island.
The political structure is the substance. Ralph is elected on the basis of the conch shell he found and organises around rescue, shelter and the signal fire. Jack builds an alternative power base around hunting, meat and the provision of excitement, and Golding shows the transfer of allegiance occurring not through argument but through the satisfaction of immediate wants. Piggy holds the intelligence and the glasses that make fire possible and has no standing because he is physically weak and socially marginal. Simon understands what is happening and cannot communicate it.
Golding's argument is that the defects of society trace to the defects of human nature, which he stated directly, and that civilisation is a restraint rather than a condition. The beast the boys fear turns out to be themselves.
The novel has been criticised on several grounds. Its claim about human nature is asserted through a constructed scenario rather than demonstrated. Rutger Bregman documented an actual case in which six shipwrecked Tongan boys cooperated successfully for fifteen months, which runs directly against Golding's premise. The characters are all boys of a specific class and nationality. Its value for organisational readers is the depiction of how legitimate authority is displaced by whoever satisfies immediate wants.
Key takeaways 8
- Legitimate authority based on rules and long-term objectives is displaced by whoever satisfies immediate wants, which happens without any argument being won.
- Symbols of authority hold only as long as the group chooses to honour them, and the conch has no power once anyone refuses it.
- Intelligence without social standing has no influence, which the treatment of Piggy demonstrates throughout.
- Fear of an external threat is used to consolidate power, and the threat's non-existence does not weaken its usefulness.
- Anonymity provided by masks and by the group removes the inhibition that individual identity imposes.
- Long-term objectives requiring sustained effort lose to immediate gratification when both are on offer.
- Golding argues that the defects of society follow from the defects of human nature, which the constructed scenario asserts rather than demonstrates.
- An actual case of shipwrecked boys who cooperated successfully for fifteen months runs directly against the novel's premise.
Who should read it
Readers interested in how authority and rules break down in a group, aware that the premise is asserted through construction rather than evidence.
Who recommended it 5 · 1 direct
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