Anarchy and Savagery: Golding's Exploration in Lord of The Flies

The Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding takes place in the setting of WW2. The book being clearly fictional has some realistic features of what actually could've happened. kids were being taken from their families and were sent to safer places except for that one group of boys who never made it to that safe place. What a better time to crash onto an island in the middle of a war where no one knows where you are because everyone is already consumed into the biggest problem. The author uses these story elements to develop the theme that without society's rigid rules, anarchy and savagery can come to light.

Character development is the most prominent story element and plays a role in this book. Without this element there wouldn't be an indication of anarchy or who the good guys were. When Ralph was voted to be chief, he started setting rules and attempting to be an authority figure to all the young kids. Ralph was the key role to turn the island into a civilization like the one he witnessed all of his life by adults. Within the upbringing of a society there's always one bad person who defines or goes against the rules and persuades people to follow his way of life. This is like a representation of the government, people will follow

the person that shows the best promising results. Jack was that character, at first he was just obsessed with hunting and then it turns into killing people, then everyone on the island is man hunting Ralph. Even though he was getting them meat and allowing them to enjoy themselves with war paint and chanting. Jack started at such a high leadership position in the beginning that it was easy to make the island into that transition. He then develops all these innocent kids into blood thirsty savages that murder people. The author really presents good vs. evil and doesn't make it hard to find who's who.
The mood in this book is more negative than positive. When you're reading your not feeling happy, your feeling sad, mad, haunted, shocked. The island at first was considered a paradise, unlimited amounts of fruit, play time, no adults, beautiful weather, but once fear sets in everything changes to a more negative tone. By the end of the book the island is a charred place where chaos got the best of it. In the beginning the island is populated with just a bunch of kids, but the end they are all murders or sinister bloodthirsty savages living in anarchy with no obligations. Without the authority they lived for so long under adults their imagination, fear and outside factors decide what happens to all of them. The kids go from fearing the beast to not being afraid and can kill anything. When their rescue comes the sailor sees a bunch of kids covered in clay holding sharpened sticks, but how the author made you feel during the book with the mood made you think they were true savages and true evil but in the end they never knew better and we're all traumatized.
Every detail in this book is one complex allegory.

The allegory is life, that without a certain structure, there would be no order which upsets a balance of good and evil in this world. It took 3 good leaders to balance out the leadership of Jack. Once people in the good leadership started being killed by the evil the balanced swayed more to the bad side and eventually everything was bad because who else are the children going to follow. In the real world of WW2 it took only one bad person to take over so much and it took a lot of good people to take down that one bad person. Yes, these were kids that didn't know better, but it just shows without the rules of society, there won't be a society and it will be anarchy and

chaos.
A lot of things in this book are symbols and represent symbolism, but there are 4 important ones throughout the book. Piggy's glasses represented intelligence, he was book smart and he had all the facts. He looked intelligent and that's why the little kids didn't like him because in the real world he would've been picked on. He knew the right answers to the problems and what was going to work. When jack broke his glasses piggy literally couldn't see, but he was now just another kid. He couldn't see the knowledgeable answer to the problems. When he was killed intelligence was completely eliminated, it does with piggy. Ralph found the conch and he used the conch for authority and rules in his attempt to build a civilization, when people start to question the authority of the person with the conch then It doesn't work and that's when anarchy starts. Ralph had street smarts and knew the best way or the proper real life way to handle situations. Simons meditation area in the jungle was his spiritual symbol. He thought up solutions in different ways than everyone else, he took more emotion into the answers than any others. He is the one that thought about the beast being within and not being physical and that we built something up in our heads but it wasn't real. At that age, everyone thinks your crazy and they won't take you seriously because it sounds too much like a fairy tale. When Simon was killed, it turned into black and white and more literal and not so much having many solutions or different ways to solve things. Jack was the symbol of true evil and the lord of the flies was his representation of his abilities. He was blood lust and wanted a dictatorship more than a society. The author uses these symbols to show how when the balance gets interrupted and important symbols disappear then a civilization can't be achieved.
The point of view in this story is third person omniscient. It's mostly in the point of view of Ralph but it jumps between characters throughout the book and sometime it's a top view of everyone and everything that's going on. It allows you to see from the eyes of kids who want the good and through the eyes that are evil and then at the end you look through the eyes of someone who wasn't involved and it was just a bunch of kids all along. When the author jumps from one view to the other you get more emotion from the characters and it also looks way worse than it is. It was just a bunch of kids playing with sticks, but in their eyes it was a war like the one happening in the real world. When it's in the eyes of the kids its violent and haunting and then when you get the outside point of view they're just kids, not knowing better and that are letting outside factors mess with their sense of knowing right and wrong. Since the point of view changes a lot it creates plot twists and curiosity of what is going to happen next. You see the chaos within and you can "watch" it.
The irony in this book is killer. One of the most ironic situations was the fire. When Ralph was voted chief and started implementing all these rules his biggest one was to always keep the fire lit for someone to possibly see it and they would get rescued. Jack was against it and felt that wasn't important, but yet he was the one that lit the island on fire which lead to the rescue at the end. Ralph's idea of a fire to get rescued wasn't important to anyone and when ultimate chaos breaks out because of the evil they get rescued. Another ironic situation was when Simon all along said the best was within and they're was no physical beast and when he met up face to face with the so called beast and when he goes to tell everyone to resolve the fear he is killed because the kids think he is the beast. The resolution of the fear died with him. Fear would then live on within the anarchy and chaos of the island. Another irony was the fact that these kids were in a war and it's a miniature version of the war going on around them, there situation and chaos may seem childish but they're representations of what's happening in the real world, and they're getting rescued from this war to go back to another one. The adult world isn't any better than their attempt for a civilization on the island.
These story elements bring life to the book in a big allegory. It may have been a children's book with kids going to war, but it represented ourselves during that time almost like we are just kids that don't know how to keep a civilization going.