Lord of the Flies

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Jessica Johnson 10h

7th June 2006

Lord of the Flies Coursework essay

Question 13- “Show how Golding creates a world of increasing violence in the novel

Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel, written shortly after the Second World War. It tells a story of school boys deserted on a island , and their struggle to manage, by an omniscient narrator who comments on setting and movement.  This is similar to the story of Coral Island, however Golding is challenging the ideas in this, instead of the boys resorting to team work and success like expected, they resort to activism and create a environment of “increasing violence”. By purposely setting the novel on a isolated island Golding can show his impression of the true nature of humans, and that he believes they would act sadistically and slowly become more and more distant from any means of civilisation. Golding manages to create a small world and community filled with violence by the end of the novel through a number of aspects; the settings, the characters and their behaviour, events, and general themes that run through the novel.

Golding purposely sets his novel Lord of the flies on an isolated island so the boy’s natural behaviour can emerge when taken away from rules or boundaries. This setting creates a small community, and the island is like a microcosm of the world. The first setting we are introduced to when reading Lord of the Flies is the lagoon along with when we meet Piggy and Ralph. This setting is peaceful, “Dazzling beach” this is an idealistic setting which is parallel to the boy’s behaviour at this point. The first aspect of any violence in the novel is when Ralph pretended to be a fighter plane and “machine gunned Piggy” this in contrast to the behaviour in the final chapters emphasizes Golding’s point and shows the huge difference in the boy’s actions and the amount of violence.

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The protagonist Ralph is not a violent character, his main aspect whilst on the island is being rescued. Whilst being the leader in the beginning of the novel he tries to maintain civilisation and a sense of democracy however

Jessica Johnson 10h

violence, activism and sadism takes over any sense of development. An example of this is when a group of boys including Jack where told to keep the fire alight; instead of keeping it alight so they could be rescued the boys decide to hunt, they use violence instead. This is where it first becomes ...

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