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READ THIS
A nuclear war has engulfed the world. Groups of boys from various schools in England are being
evacuated.
En route to their destination, their aeroplane is shot down and the boys find themselves on a tropical
island, with no adults to supervise them.
They gather together and elect a leader. Three of them thereupon explore the island.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Lord of the Flies was first published in the early 1950s when the world was recovering from the
devastation of World War II. The horror of Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini was still on everyone's mind.
At the same time, a significant event had recently happened -- the detonation of two atomic bombs over
Japan. The people of the world were transfixed by the devastation.
Furthermore, in 1949 Russia revealed that it too had the atomic bomb. The world suddenly had two
superpowers threatening everyone with a nuclear holocaust.
It was taken for granted that a nuclear war would soon erupt. One prediction for this event was 1964 --
the theme of Nevil Shute's novel On the Beach.
The fear of the atomic bomb is clearly revealed in a series of movies released during the early 1950s.
In the remake of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, America attempts unsuccessfully to destroy the
Martian invaders through the use of a nuclear weapon.
In Them, ants mutate into giants through contact with radiation and threaten to take over the
world.
Tarantula has a similar plot while in The Incredible Shrinking Man -- arguably the best
movie of this genre -- the hero shrinks to infinity after accidentally passing through a nuclear cloud while
at sea on a yacht.
These were the fears which were gripping the imagination at the time when William Golding was writing
Lord of the Flies.
The story is set in the very near future, at a time when new but strange aircraft travelled the skies.
In the plot, the next world war has indeed happened and the boys have had to be evacuated to Australia
because of the nuclear threat to England.
It is easy to conjure up yet another Hitler but in this case in the shape of the tyrant, Jack. Golding shows
what would happen within a small and closed community if such a tyrant were to succeed.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
The fat boy asks: "Where's the man with the megaphone?"
- Who is the man with the megaphone? (2)
[Need help?]
The man with the megaphone was on board the plane with the boys, directing them and probably helping
with the evacuation when their plane was shot down.
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[Need help?]
He was presumably killed when the plane crashed.
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- What does the question tell you about the boys' arrival on the island? (2)
[Need help?]
The boys were all on board the evacuation aeroplane whose passenger tube was jettisoned when the
plane was shot down. This passenger tube descended onto the island where it disgorged its passengers.
What was this "passenger tube"? There's another question below which refers to it.
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- What does his question tell you about their anxieties? (2)
[Need help?]
Many of these boys were now deeply anxious because there were no adults amongst them. Most had
probably never been without adult supervision. After all, most of these boys were extremely young. Even
Simon was only six.
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Explain how the boys arrived on the island. What is the meaning of the "passenger tube" which
scarred the island? (4)
[Need help?]
The boys were evacuated from England during a threat of nuclear war. The aeroplane which was flying
them to safety appears to be of a futuristic design, with a "passenger tube" that could be detached
from the pilot's section.
When the plane was shot at, the boys were able to see the pilot's section flying away in flames, having
jettisoned the passenger tube which then crashed onto the island, created a great scar through the forest.
The boys -- at least those who survived the crash -- scrambled out onto the island. The tube was then
blown out to sea during a storm.
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The boys are excited that there are no grown-ups.
- How do they express this excitement? (2)
[Need help?]
Ralph expresses his excitement by doing a head-stand -- the way he appears to express all excitement.
Piggy, on the other hand, is concerned by the lack of adults.
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- What does this tell you about the boys? (4)
[Need help?]
The boys initially do not seem much distressed by the crash itself -- it's almost as if they have little
memory of it. They are more excited about being alone, free from all restrictions, free to have an
adventure.
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Do you know the actual ages of the boys?
[Need help?]
- Piggy = probably about 11
- Roger = probably about 11 or 12
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What does the conch represent? (4)
[Need help?]
Note that the conch does NOT represent leadership. Indeed, some of the boys who held it -- like the little
boy with the birthmark -- were not leaders in any way and certainly did not become leaders when they
held the conch.
No, the conch gave the boys the right to speak. It therefore represented authority or
discipline.
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The children all come from an orderly background. How do you know? (2)
[Need help?]
The boys came from an orderly English society where everything was clearly organised and where there
were suitable uniforms for each role.
Indeed, the most obvious sign of that orderly background was the wearing of school uniforms and the
capes worn by the choir-boys. All the boys wore uniforms of some sort.
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What do you know about Jack Merridew? (4)
[Need help?]
Jack was the leader of the school choir. He was therefore probably also a school prefect.
He also had a very good singing voice, shown by the fact that he was very proud of the fact that he could
sing C#.
See if you can sing C#. Indeed, see if you can sing anything # -- or anything in C!
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The election of the leader:
- Why was Jack the most obvious choice as leader? (2)
[Need help?]
Jack was already a leader in that he led the school choir, which gave him a natural following especially
amongst his choirboys.
Presumably the schoolmasters back in England recognised a leadership ability in him.
Ralph, on the other hand, had not been a prefect at school.
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- Considering that the boys knew neither Ralph nor Jack, why did they vote for Ralph as leader and not
for Jack? (4)
[Need help?]
Ralph was the one who had blown on the conch which had called them to the meeting. In a sense, he
was taking the place of the man with the megaphone on the aeroplane, the man who was in charge of
them.
The very little boys would therefore have recognised in him some form of automatic leadership without
his having to prove anything.
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- Ralph wins the election, then immediately shows signs of conciliatory leadership.
Explain? (4)
[Need help?]
After he has won the election, Ralph immediately makes a conciliatory gesture by appointing Jack to be
in charge of the choir which, in this case, is immediately transformed into a hunting party.
This will, of course, play into Jack's hands because the hunting party quickly comes to represent fun,
security and the ability to acquire meat.
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Who are the boys who climb to the top of the mountain? Why do they do this? (2)
[Need help?]
The boys are Ralph, Jack and Simon.
It seems strange that Simon should have been selected because he was extremely young and had little
staying power. Remember that it was he who had fainted.
Is there a good reason for Simon's being selected? Well, it might have something to do with R.M.
Ballantyne's much earlier novel called Coral Island, a novel which was the inspiration for Lord
of the Flies.
In that novel, the three boys were Jack, Ralph and Peterkin. Simon takes the place of Peterkin and --
like
Peterkin -- was rather small. The island on which the three boys had been wrecked was precisely the
same as this one.
The purpose for this reconnaissance party was to climb the mountain to determine whether or not they
were indeed on an island.
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