What is Golding Telling us About Society in 'Lord of the Flies'

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What is Golding Telling us About Society in ‘Lord of the Flies’?

Golding is telling us that without rules and organisation, civilisation cannot exist and that there is a beast in everyone, it is just a question if it can be controlled. His message is conveyed by the action of boys as they transform from civilised schoolboys into murderous savages.

At the beginning of the novel, a group of schoolboys crash-land on an uninhabited island. Golding has experimented with boys to see how they would react without adults, and also the fact that children are more easily manipulated. They are an allegory for everyone, as savagery is a part of us, but it is harnessed by rules and order. Golding wants to show how easily savagery can take over once rules have been broken. He has placed them on an uninhabited island with food and water. After they have crash-landed, two characters emerge- Ralph and Piggy. Ralph is excited by the idea that there are no adults on the island so he can have fun:

‘In the middle of the scar he stood on his head and grinned at the reversed fat boy. “No grown-ups!”

However, Piggy is worried that there are no grown ups on the island, so he may be bullied.

Piggy finds a conch and gives it to Ralph to blow. After he blows it, all the other boys on the island meet up and because Ralph blew the conch, he is elected chief. Out of this election emerges another character- Jack. Jack is a character who loves being in command and control. However, he is not elected chief.

Ralph’s main objective is to keep the signal fire going so they can be rescued. He creates rules to ensure order is kept. In creating rules, Ralph has formed the boys into a new civilisation. Without the rules that Ralph has made, the boys would be in anarchy and become savage from the beginning.

During the novel, the boys are haunted by a beast. It starts off when a ‘littlun’, or younger boy, misinterprets some creepers for snakes. No-one believes that there is a beast at first, but as the story goes on, the boys get frightened. However they have no reason for being scared so they have the beast in their minds to blame their fear on. This beast is further misinterpreted as a dead parachutist. But Jack plays with the others’ minds telling them that if there was a beast, then he would hunt it down:

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‘“Bollocks to the rules! We’re strong- we hunt. If there’s a beast, we’ll hunt it down! We’ll close in and beat and beat and beat-!”’

This shows that Jack has taken the first step into becoming savage. By saying “Bollocks to the rules”, he has implied that he does not care for the rules. He plays with the others’ minds so he can be elected chief, guarding them from the beast. However, there is no beast that can be hunted, as Simon finds out

Simon has an hallucination when he confronts a pig’s head on a stick infested with flies. ...

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