Lord of the Flies essays

Historical Context The story of Charles Marlow in Heart of Darkness is heavily based around Joseph Conrad’s own experiences in the Congo during the time of the transatlantic slave trade; in which natives were kidnapped by imperial powers and exploited to work under the ‘superior’ race. During the 1890s, ivory was a valuable commodity. As … Read more

“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scrounge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.” Golding’s life experiences exposed him to the worst of mankind. Having lived through both world wars; Goldings observations of mankind’s negative cycle of power … Read more

In 1692, the Salem Witch Trials resulted in the deaths of twenty innocent people. The trials were brutal events caused by a group of people who succumbed to mob mentality. The accusers and bystanders blindly agreed to take part in violent acts because their brains caused them to act like those around them. People easily … Read more

In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, a group of British schoolboys land on an island after crashing amidst a war. With no adults or supervision required to maintain their school like behavior, one by one the boys let go of their once civil lives and fully embrace the wild and savage nature. Though, … Read more

Human nature. Is it good or evil? Evil is not an outside force but rather resides within each person. In The Lord of the Flies, William Golding questions human behavior. In the novel, an airplane full of young British school boys crashes. The pilot dies and the boys must learn to survive on their own … Read more

It is 1945, bombs are dropping, people are dying, a Nazi leader named Hitler has already begun to exterminate an ethnic group of people and has used hundreds of people to help in that endeavor. Did Hitler make these people evil or did he just bring out what was already in them? The idea of … Read more

Being stranded on an island and living without a society, would those stranded keep morals and order? Or would they rebel and fall into the craving for power and loss the order that would be attempted to be established? Lord of the Flies is a book about schoolboys, from England, on a field trip that … Read more

Golding, William. Lord of The Flies. New York, New York. Penguin Group, 1954. Passing of time Lord of The Flies is set right before the next World War on an uncharted island after a plane crashes, stranding British schoolboys with no adult supervision to fend for themselves against the unknown dangers of the wilderness and … Read more

Adult Tendencies In Lord of the Flies, Ralph shows many different tendencies of adulthood. Throughout the book, he shows that he wants to protect and care for the boys by building shelters and keeping the fire going for rescue. He also takes other’s words into consideration by using the conch as a way to get … Read more

An individual who loses relation with civilization often declines from its firm principles. Mankind’s inclination to regress to savagery is based on the deep-rooted evilness that resides within a person’s nature. The stories Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, and “The Toys of Peace,” by Saki capture this internal conflict between civilization and savagery … Read more

Boys will never be just boys, according to the renowned author William Golding. In Golding’s renowned allegorical novel Lord of the Flies, Simon enters the story as a plane-wrecked schoolboy like every other character in the book. However, Golding later uses Simon as a key figure representing Jesus, set apart from the boys who are … Read more

The Lord of the Flies is all about fear. Golding seems to be suggesting that fear, and its complications are the source of all evil. Throughout the novel, the boys show fear in many things. They see and hear assorted things on the island and assume them to be beasts to be dreaded. After much … Read more

Most human beings tend to always hunt for power, and once they gain power, one wants more. The idea of power struggle is very relevant in this novel. Golding uses Ralph and Jack to show power struggle many times throughout the novel. Ralph and Jack have different opinions between what is good, what is evil, … Read more

William Golding creates many characters in his novel, Lord of the Flies, but the most influential is Jack Merridew. He experiences a change that directly influences the outcome of the novel. He goes from a very innocent English schoolboy to this beast or savage that totally twists the novel. Jack doesn’t like to follow Ralph, … Read more

Introduction Lord of the Flies is a 1954 novel by the British author William Golding. The novel traces the adventures of a group of boys after their plane crashes on an uninhabited island. The events of the novel take place against a backdrop of warfare and violence, which recreates the bloodshed that occurred during the … Read more

In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies the conch represents law and order. The boys impose a “rule of the conch” on themselves, deciding that no one can speak unless he’s holding the conch. But what happens to the group when order is under pressure from the boys’ instincts’?We don’t need the conch any more. … Read more

Ralph is the representation or symbol of leadership, civilization, order, good, etc. This quote ‘He was old enough, twelve years and a few months, to have lost the prominent tummy of childhood and not yet old enough for adolescence to have made him awkward. You could see now that he might make a boxer, as … Read more

Lord of the Flies begins in England during the 2nd World War with pupils from a male primary school being evacuated to a safer location due to enemy bombing. The plane on which they were being evacuated supposedly  got hit by a missile and crashed on an uninhabited island. The pilot didn’t survive the crash … Read more