Interview with William Golding - BBC Studio.

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Leanne Le Poidevin                                                        March 10th 2004        

Interview with William Golding

BBC Studio.

Present: Leanne Le Poidevin and William Golding

Leanne Le Poidevin is interviewing William Golding about his book, Lord Of The Flies.

Leanne: Good afternoon Mr. Golding.

Mr Golding: Good afternoon to you.

Leanne: As we all know, Lord of the flies is about lots of boys trapped on an island. What was the reason of putting just boys on the island? Why were there no girls?

Mr Golding: At the time of the book, it was the war. Fighting and arguing was going on around us, and it seemed as though nobody was really sane anymore. It started off as being happy and positive, and ended up being complete madness. Women were at home, doing the housework, cooking food, you know? They didn’t really have a choice in anything. To be fair, they didn’t really have much of a part in everyday life. This is the image that I tried to portray on the island. I felt that if I’d have put girls on the island, the book would not have been so action-packed. Girls have a strange habit of making the atmosphere a lot calmer, and I did not want this. I also felt it would be hard to know the characters of girls. As a writer, I feel it is essential to know your characters well, and because I was a little boy, I do not know how a little girl would have felt at that age. I wanted my characters to be believable, and by putting girls on the island, I don’t think I would have achieved this. I also realised that girls go through many problems when they are growing up, and I wanted my story to be an action one, not one full of relationships, I e boys and girls. I don’t think that the island I wanted to create would have catered for their teenage needs, shall we say.

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Leanne: Yes, I understand. Thankyou. Those are some very interesting points. There are many themes running through the book, which I think is what makes it exciting. One of them is the blood or killing theme. Why did you feel it was necessary to include this?

Mr Golding: At the age that the boys are, they are boisterous, very loud and they are basically trying to impress each other. Jack is known as the leader of the hunters, but it is obvious that he really doesn’t have a clue about hunting. I purposely made him a choirboy ...

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