Setting of the Novel
Lord of the Flies takes place on an unnamed, uninhabited tropical island in the Pacific Ocean during a fictional worldwide war around the year 1950. The boys arrive on the island when an airplane that was presumably evacuating them crashes. From the moment of their arrival, the boys begin destroying the natural harmony of the island. The scorched land where the airplane crashed, ripping up trees, is described as a “scar.” The boys set a fire that burns out of control, kill the wild pigs living on the island, use the beach as a bathroom, and finally burn the entire island, so that it is “scorched up like dead wood.” Although the boys initially rejoice at the adventures they’ll have on the island, saying it’s “wizard,” the island itself is described as an inhospitable terrain, as though the land is attempting to reject its new inhabitants. The coconuts are “skull-like,” the sun’s rays are “invisible arrows,” the sound of the trees rubbing against each other is “evil.” The natural world is violent and impartial to the civility and order of human life, as evidenced when the tide reclaims the brutalized bodies of Simon and Piggy.
Plot
After a group of boys find themselves stranded on a deserted island, ranks begin to form. Ralph is elected leader of the boys, and he appoints Jack as leader of the hunters. The boys attempt to light a signal fire, but mistakenly set nearby trees on fire, angering Piggy who mentions that one of the boys is missing. Tensions between Ralph and Jack grow after Ralph criticizes Jack and some of the other boys for not contributing to their efforts to build huts for the younger boys and for failing to catch a pig. Ralph and Piggy spot a ship in the distance, but the signal fire has gone out. Ralph is furious with Jack and his hunters who were supposed to maintain the signal fire, however, Jack, overjoyed and in a frenzy after finally catching a pig, ignores Ralph’s complaints. The twins, Sam and Eric, mistake the body of a dead parachutist for the beast, and after informing Ralph, the boys organize an expedition to search the island for monsters. Jack separates from Ralph’s group and forms a tribe of his own. Jack and his group leave a pig’s head on a stake in the clearing as an offering to the beast. Simon discovers the dead body of the parachutist and realizes that the boys mistook it for the beast. When Simon emerges from the woods hoping to tell them about the reality of the beast, he is attacked and murdered by the boys who mistake him for the beast. Jack and his tribe attack Ralph and Piggy while they sleep, and they steal Piggy’s glasses in order to make fire. Ralph and Piggy decide to go to the Castle Rock to convince Jack to return Piggy’s glasses and listen to reason. Ralph and Jack begin to fight, ultimately leading to Piggy’s death. Jack proceeds to set the jungle on fire in order to find and kill Ralph. Ralph runs for his life until he arrives at the beach where he finds a naval officer who says they have come to rescue them.
Themes
The central concern of Lord of the Flies is the conflict between two competing impulses that exist within all human beings: the instinct to live by rules, act peacefully, follow moral commands, and value the good of the group against the instinct to gratify one’s immediate desires, act violently to obtain supremacy over others, and enforce one’s will. The conflict between the two instincts is the driving force of the novel, explored through the dissolution of the young English boys’ civilized, moral, disciplined behavior as they accustom themselves to a wild, brutal, barbaric life in the jungle.
Another important theme is Loss of Innocence. As the boys on the island progress from well-behaved, orderly children longing for rescue to cruel, bloodthirsty hunters who have no desire to return to civilization, they naturally lose the sense of innocence that they possessed at the beginning of the novel. The painted savages in Chapter 12 who have hunted, tortured, and killed animals and human beings are a far cry from the guileless children swimming in the lagoon in Chapter 3. But Golding does not portray this loss of innocence as something that is done to the children; rather, it results naturally from their increasing openness to the innate evil and savagery that has always existed within them.
Moreover, Man's inherent evil is another significant theme. The fact that the main characters in Lord of the Flies are young boys suggests the potential for evil is inherent even in small children. Jack, for example, is initially keen for rules and civility, but becomes obsessed with hunting, frightened and empowered by the promise of violence. Even Ralph and Piggy, who both strive to maintain their sense of humanity, ultimately join in on the mass murder of Simon, momentarily surrendering to the thrill of violence and mass hysteria.
Character Analysis
Ralph
Ralph is the athletic, charismatic protagonist of Lord of the Flies. Elected the leader of the boys at the beginning of the novel, Ralph is the primary representative of order, civilization, and productive leadership in the novel. While most of the other boys initially are concerned with playing, having fun, and avoiding work, Ralph sets about building huts and thinking of ways to maximize their chances of being rescued. For this reason, Ralph’s power and influence over the other boys are secure at the beginning of the novel. However, as the group gradually succumbs to savage instincts over the course of the novel, Ralph’s position declines precipitously while Jack’s rises. Eventually, most of the boys except Piggy leave Ralph’s group for Jack’s, and Ralph is left alone to be hunted by Jack’s tribe. Ralph’s commitment to civilization and morality is strong, and his main wish is to be rescued and returned to the society of adults. In a sense, this strength gives Ralph a moral victory at the end of the novel, when he casts the Lord of the Flies to the ground and takes up the stake it is impaled on to defend himself against Jack’s hunters.
Jack
The strong-willed, egomaniacal Jack is the novel’s primary representative of the instinct of savagery, violence, and the desire for power—in short, the antithesis of Ralph. From the beginning of the novel, Jack desires power above all other things. He is furious when he loses the election to Ralph and continually pushes the boundaries of his subordinate role in the group. Early on, Jack retains the sense of moral propriety and behavior that society instilled in him—in fact, in school, he was the leader of the choirboys. The first time he encounters a pig, he is unable to kill it. But Jack soon becomes obsessed with hunting and devotes himself to the task, painting his face like a barbarian and giving himself over to bloodlust. The more savage Jack becomes, the more he is able to control the rest of the group. Indeed, apart from Ralph, Simon, and Piggy, the group largely follows Jack in casting off moral restraint and embracing violence and savagery. Jack’s love of authority and violence are intimately connected, as both enable him to feel powerful and exalted. By the end of the novel, Jack has learned to use the boys’ fear of the beast to control their behavior—a reminder of how religion and superstition can be manipulated as instruments of power.
Piggy
Piggy is the first boy Ralph encounters on the island after the crash and remains the most true and loyal friend throughout Lord of the Flies. An overweight, intellectual, and talkative boy, Piggy is the brains behind many of Ralph’s successful ideas and innovations, such as using the conch to call meetings and building shelters for the group. Piggy represents the scientific and rational side of humanity, supporting Ralph’s signal fires and helping to problem solve on the island. However, Piggy’s asthma, weight, and poor eyesight make him physically inferior to the others, making him vulnerable to scorn and ostracism. Piggy is also the only boy who worries about the rules of English civilization, namely what the grownups will think when they find the savage boys. Piggy believes in rules, timeliness, and order, and as the island descends into brutal chaos, Piggy’s position comes under threat of intense violence.
Simon
Whereas Ralph and Jack stand at opposite ends of the spectrum between civilization and savagery, Simon stands on an entirely different plane from all the other boys. Simon embodies a kind of innate, spiritual human goodness that is deeply connected with nature and, in its own way, as primal as Jack’s evil. The other boys abandon moral behavior as soon as civilization is no longer there to impose it upon them. They are not innately moral; rather, the adult world—the threat of punishment for misdeeds—has conditioned them to act morally. To an extent, even the seemingly civilized Ralph and Piggy are products of social conditioning, as we see when they participate in the hunt-dance.
Symbols
The Conch Shell
Ralph and Piggy discover the conch shell on the beach at the start of the novel and use it to summon the boys together after the crash separates them. Used in this capacity, the conch shell becomes a powerful symbol of civilization and order in the novel. The shell effectively governs the boys’ meetings, for the boy who holds the shell holds the right to speak. In this regard, the shell is more than a symbol—it is an actual vessel of political legitimacy and democratic power. As the island civilization erodes and the boys descend into savagery, the conch shell loses its power and influence among them.
Piggy’s Glasses
Piggy is the most intelligent, rational boy in the group, and his glasses represent the power of science and intellectual endeavor in society. This symbolic significance is clear from the start of the novel, when the boys use the lenses from Piggy’s glasses to focus the sunlight and start a fire. When Jack’s hunters raid Ralph’s camp and steal the glasses, the savages effectively take the power to make fire, leaving Ralph’s group helpless.
The Signal Fire
The signal fire burns on the mountain, and later on the beach, to attract the notice of passing ships that might be able to rescue the boys. As a result, the signal fire becomes a barometer of the boys’ connection to civilization. In the early parts of the novel, the fact that the boys maintain the fire is a sign that they want to be rescued and return to society. When the fire burns low or goes out, we realize that the boys have lost sight of their desire to be rescued and have accepted their savage lives on the island.
The Beast
The imaginary beast that frightens all the boys in the novel represents the primal instinct of savagery that exists in every human being. Although the beast never exists in a physical form, it is ever-present on the island, existing in the minds of the boys. The idea of the beast is manipulated and distorted by the boys to maintain their control over the group. They are also able to shift blame for their savage actions onto the beast, as they ultimately blame the beast for the murder of Simon.