Lord of the Flies Summary | Chapterly
Lord of the Flies by William Golding: A Complete Summary "Maybe there is a beast... maybe it's only us." Overview Lord of the Flies (1954) is one of the most unsettling novels of the twentieth century. A group of British schoolboys, stranded on a uninhabited island after a plane crash during wartime, attempt to govern themselves. They fail. Their miniature civilization collapses into tribalism, violence, and murder. William Golding wrote the novel as a direct response to the Victorian adventure stories he had grown up with -- books like The Coral Island that imagined stranded British boys as naturally civilized and resourceful. Golding, who had served in World War II and witnessed the capacity for cruelty in ordinary people, knew better. His novel argues that savagery is not the exception in human nature but its foundation, kept in check only by the fragile structures of civilization. The novel has never been out of print. It remains one of the most widely taught and debated books in the English-speaking world. Themes Civilization vs. Savagery The novel's central conflict is between Ralph, who represents order, reason, and democratic governance, and Jack, who represents authoritarianism, violence, and the appeal of primal instinct. Their...