William Golding is both one of the most celebrated and criticized authors of the twentieth century. Golding’s works contain characters and themes that can be analyzed on both the narrative level as well as the symbolic and psychological levels. Bernard S. Oldsey and Stanley Weintraub state that “[t]here is no easy way to fit [Golding] into any current English school of fiction” (167). Golding’s delving into human nature’s darkest and most frightening depths gives him a unique place amongst twentieth century authors. His first and most popular novel, Lord of the Flies, is where Golding first unveils his interpretation and analysis of human nature, which is expanded upon in later novels. The novel ushered in a new era of psychological fiction that influenced writers such as Stephen King. Lord of the Flies is an examination of basic human nature in its own primal unsocialized element: an exhibition of all the characteristics of Golding’s original method of crafting his fables and allegories.
The literature of William Golding addresses the topics of original sin and human nature on a metaphorical level. Though Lord of the Flies concludes with the rescue of the boys, the common theme throughout is the “beast” within each child, and the absence of authority on the island is the catalyst that sparks the childrens’ behavior. The truth is that there are no beasts or creatures on the island, simply the evils of humanity. Golding makes his characters allegorical; Ralph is a inquisitive leader. He is the first to determine the need to create shelter on the island. Piggy symbolizes logic and is a fervent believer in the power of democracy, as he attempts to think as an adult, particular his “Auntie.” Jack and Roger are polar opposites of the rational characters Ralph and Piggy. Roger is the sadist, as he enjoys hurting others. His motives for evil vary from Jack's, who pursues a high stature and enjoys a hunt. As C. B. Cox states, “[Lord of the Flies] shows how intelligence (Piggy) and common sense (Ralph) will always be overthrown in society by sadism (Roger) and the lure of totalitarianism (Jack)” (170). The actions of the opposing characters reflect Golding’s theories about human nature: the forces of evil, Jack and Roger, triumph over those for practical good, Ralph and Piggy.
Simon, another one of Golding’s characters in Lord of the Flies, stands alone from the other characters. Simon is the Christ symbol, as he is the only boy who can see the true reality of life on the island. He stands up for Piggy when his glasses are knocked away by Jack, and courageously seeks to confront the unknown creature on the mountain. A monumental moment in the novel is Simon’s encounter with the Lord of the Flies, as Golding uses it to state his thesis for the novel. Golding tells the reader (and Simon) that “[the Beast is] part of [him]… [w]hy things are what they are” (Golding 143). Simon is not created for the simple narrative side of the novel, but entirely for the allegorical, symbolic aspect. Golding’s characterization of Simon is written to plainly state that the evils of the human race reside within itself (Cox 172). Simon stands alone in all of Golding’s later works as the only character meant to demonstrate his allegorical thesis. Simon’s experience with the Lord of the Flies “allows Golding… to ram his lesson home” (O’Hara 415).
The island represents the characterization of Golding’s novel, as a common theme of his fiction is his choice of setting. Golding’s use of settings set apart from society and its conformities. This allows a greater focus on the characters and less on their relationship to their surroundings. The novels take place “in a confined world … further confined by the characters’ limited conceptual boundaries” (Boyd 163). Golding uses unconventional main characters; he uses children in Lord of the Flies, an egotistical shipwrecked sailor in Pincher Martin, and neanderthals in The Inheritors. The lack of normal characters in a generic setting removes social conformities and constructs from Golding’s works. His literature uses “society as we know it [as] largely an idea, a confused memory in the midst of a catastrophe[,] while the pre-social and the post-social have become the paramount actualities” (Marcus 165). In Lord of the Flies, savagery versus civilization is introduced through the symbol of the conch shell when Ralph uses it to become the elected leader of the boys. The boys have transformed the island into a democratic place in an attempt to recreate the styles of homes they have left behind. Their removal from societal standards allows them to focus on general necessities needed to live peacefully on the island. In another demonstration of the impact of Golding’s settings, Roger throwing rocks at Henry appears to be a one-dimensional, simple game. We are informed by the narrator of a "taboo of the old life"–a life full of "parents and school and policemen and the law”, which would have prevented Roger from hitting the boys in a normal, societally-conformed setting. With a lack of outside influence, Roger sheds society’s rules. A lack of societal influence on his settings allows Golding to display humankind’s fall from grace.
Evil and selfishness inherent in human nature is a recurring theme in Golding’s novels. The collapse of the island’s social structure and transformation into a totalitarian state led by Jack occurs because the boys have an innate tendency for violence (Kennard 110). In each of his works, Golding applies his view of man’s nature in a different way, though all of Golding’s novels address the same topic of human nature:
“[Golding’s] first two novels, Lord of the Flies and The Inheritors, are parables portraying the evil inherent in man’s nature; in them, the author employs images of man’s origins, in childhood and in prehistory, to illustrate man’s swift and inevitable loss of innocence. Pincher Martin turns from the nature of evil itself and focuses on its spiritual consequences.” (Axthelm 233)
Golding’s Lord of the Flies is his first fictional examination into the human mind. The regression into barbarism, murder and cannibalism is an examination of essential human depravity. When the boys, filled with a primal and bestial energy, kill Simon thinking he is the beast, Golding expresses his belief that “man is not merely … savage and afraid, but that he refuses deliverance and murders the messengers of light” (Anderson 197). Lord of the Flies, when seen in Golding’s body of work as a whole, establishes his views, and each of his successive novels “represent[s] another face carved from” these views (Tiger 217).
Lord of the Flies demonstrates that it set the style of the Golding novel in Golding’s mind. Golding wrote Lord of the Flies with R. M. Ballantyne’s The Coral Island. Written 100 years before Lord of the Flies, the novel tells the story of three boys stranded on a desert island. While Golding's characters suffer hunger, loneliness, and the fatal consequences of political conflict after they are deserted, the boys of Coral Island share laughs and jovial times on their island. Lord of the Flies could be considered a reaction to Ballantyne’s Victorian opinion of children as inherently good (Gindin 21), and Golding’s later novels follow this same pattern. The Inheritors relates to H. G. Wells’ Outline of History, Rites of Passage to Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Pincher Martin to Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, and The Pyramid to Dickens’ Great Expectations (Boyd 163). Golding is inspired by various authors and their fiction, and “have all had as part of their genesis a quarrel with another writer’s view of the same situation” (Tiger 221).
Lord of the Flies places William Golding into a group of closely studied authors, due to its intriguing nature and input into the evils of humankind. Golding’s novels are “exceptions to the socio-realistic novels of his contemporaries” (Ries 239). Golding’s examination of characters in a lack of society stood out from a time of writing characters within close social conformities (Gindin 14-15). Golding also is original in that he is the “first English novelist to use with entire naturalness the findings and doctrines of modern anthropology and psychoanalysis” (Marcus 165). Golding’s work has influenced authors with great interest in psychological fiction, such as Stephen King, who has stated that Lord of the Flies had the greatest influence on him as a writer (Beahm 128).
Lord of the Flies is considered one of “the most important novel[s] to be published in [England] in the 1950s” (Cox 170). No other fiction of Golding has received as much praise, though all of his novels share the same basic formula: a setting isolated from societal standards, a simple narrative with an allegorical level, and an examination of human nature. All of Golding’s novels viewed as a whole are not a “step-by-step achievement,” but “a series of variations on a problem” (Kinkead-Weeks and Gregor 247). In his novels, characters are removed from civilizations and attempt to preserve society, or live in a way exempt from basic societal concepts. In some his novels, characters’ civility fails to survive, and savagery prevails, while in others, brutality and evil is a natural instinct. Lord of the Flies stands out among these works of human examination. A main difference between Lord of the Flies and Golding’s other novels is its relatable and entertaining choice of characters and setting: a group of schoolboys on a desserted island. Those curious of mankind’s nature may have been drawn to Lord of the Flies because it shows that children driven out of society by human violence, when given the opportunity, begin a shift to bloodlust. Perhaps Lord of the Flies speaks to society because it preaches a message that it was already developing on its own: “that to be human is perhaps to be monstrous” (Blishen 160).