Reacting against Victorian optimism and to the horrors of the 20th

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Reacting against Victorian optimism and to the horrors of the 20th

Century, William Golding chose to express his anti-Utopian views about

humanity in Lord of the Flies (1954). Explore how Golding crafts his

narrative in order to voice his philosophical views about man's

essential illness. To what extent do you agree with his views?

Golding's dystopian views of 'man's essential illness' are derived

from his experience of 20th Century warfare. 'Lord of the Flies' is a

fable in which Golding displays man's flaws inside a microcosm. This

didactical work shows us that we have far to go, but there is hope. I

will study his novel to discover his views, and will decide if I

concur with them.

Golding was born in Cornwall in 1911, and brought up in Wiltshire. His

father was a teacher and a socialist and his mother actively supported

the campaign for votes for women, so from an early age he was aware of

social and political systems and their influence on people. During the

Second World War, Golding joined the Royal Navy and took part in the

sinking of the Bismarck and the Normandy landings on D-Day. His

experience of the war had a profound effect on his view of the world.

He learnt how brutal people can be.

Although he was appalled by the evils of Nazism and the Third Reich,

he said in an interview in 1963 that everyone was capable of

inhumanity, not just the German or the Japanese. He saw Nazism as an

evil system, and so horrifying that it could not be explained through

reason alone. Later on he looked for an explanation in the nature of

human beings, in their capacity for brutality and inhumanity.

He read adventure stories such as 'The Coral Island', (1858), to his

children, and wondered what would really happen to children stranded

on a desert island. He took the idea of an innocent experience on an

island and saw it in relation to the experience of Nazism and World

War Two.

In 'Lord of the Flies' Golding refers twice to R.M Ballantyne's 'The

Coral Island'. The writer deliberately wrote 'The Lord of the Flies'

in direct contest with the 'The Coral Island'. This is known because

of an unpublished letter Golding wrote to his wife:

'Wouldn't it be a good idea to write a book about real boys on an

island, showing what a mess they'd make?'

Golding then went ahead and wrote the book to turn Ballantyne's

simplistic assumptions and optimistic hopes on its head. Golding is

even bold enough to use identical names as Ballantyne's for his main

characters: Jack and Ralph in both books are protagonists, and are

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