
Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, is one of the most widely recognized polysemic novels of all time (Anjum, Nawaz, & Ramzan). Golding’s use of visual rhetoric and imagery have given audience’s many different platforms to dissect the story. One of the most popular ways to analyze Lord of the Flies is that the events in the story symbolize the dystopian aspects of war. William Golding was enrolled in England’s navy during World War II and this had a heavy influence on his earlier works (Prusse). When placing the novel within historical significance, Lord of the Flies is a depiction of man’s innate evil. This evil will eventually lead to structural instabilities within a society and cause wars.

After a series of ordinary jobs, Golding joined the Royal Navy in 1940 shortly after the outbreak of World War II (Prusse). He worked on various ships and eventually wound up as a lieutenant. The deaths he witnessed during his time in the Navy left a deep impact on him. During the D-Day invasions, Golding was left with to make the decision to navigate a minefield that made him choose between keeping his men safe or arriving for the D-Day operations on time. Afterwards he learned that the minefield was not real, but rather a ploy made up to fool the Germans. This taught Golding of how influential and detrimental war can be on a single person, as he felt very emotionally taxed by the decision he was forced to make. 

Lord of the Flies starts off when an airplane full of kids gets shot down and crashes onto a deserted island (Golding). The act of shooting the airplane is not explicitly stated and occurs before the exposition of the novel. Placing this event before the exposition of the novel puts the audience in the same position a clear majority of the general population is during a time of war. Often an average member of society is not aware of why a war is occurring. In the case of Lord of the Flies, the audience does not know why the airplane full of kids was shot down, or why the kids were in the airplane in the first place. The kids are also not fully aware of what has just happened, and only know that they are now stuck on an island. The kids not being aware of what is happening and why it is happening parallels soldiers who find themselves in a time of war defending their country but not knowing the true purpose of the war. The kids do not know why they were forced into this situation, but they understand that the must now do everything in their power to survive.

Golding’s use of kids throughout the story drives home a devastating truth about war: innocent people will get hurt (Golding). Kids are a prime example of innocence simply due to their short time on this world. Children have not been taught to differentiate good morale vs. bad moral, at least in a developed sense of the word. They act on intuition, pure human emotion. The kids in Lord of the Flies are assumed to be rather young due to their vocabulary and childish behavior. Unfortunately, due to being trapped on this island, the kids have been forced to focus solely on survival. In a time of war, soldiers are no different. Soldiers are never truly aware of the reasons behind them being in a war, but they must try their hardest to survive. War forces humans to retrogress to their natural state where anything other than survival becomes extraneous. 

The use of kids also goes to show how Golding views on man’s natural morality (Golding). Golding very obviously thinks that humans are innately evil, as shown by the kid’s actions. The kids have not learned right from wrong, but they still turn on each other and even end up killing Piggy. Despite being stranded on an island together and needing cooperation to set up a society, they fail to incorporate these ideals. Their failures in setting up a society ultimately leads to their downfall. The kids start disagreeing with each other as early as chapter one when kids refuse to follow the rules of the conch. This innate badness shown in the kids represents the innate badness of all human kind, which has ultimately lead to all the wars that Golding is criticizing. 

Golding likes to use religious themes in his works, and he uses them to further develop his argument about human’s innate badness. The island the kids crash on parallels the Garden of Eden (Anjum, Nawaz, & Ramzan). It is a beautiful island with no signs of evil anywhere until the kids come and corrupt it with anger, arguing, and even murder. Also, Simon functions as a Christ figure due to his overall calmness and kindness. He helps the little kids get food, he gives piggy food, and he does not condone violence. Simon is killed by the boys on the island, the same boys he helped all throughout the story. Jesus is killed by the people whose sins he is trying to protect them from. The difference in their deaths is that once Simon is killed, the boys are not in a better situation as all of humankind was after Jesus’s death. Golding uses Simon’s death to show that people feel so helpless in times of war that they cannot even turn to religion for help. Simon’s death was fruitless, and in times of war people of the Judeo-Christian belief might feel the same about Jesus’s death. This pessimistic view on religion where people “give up” on their religion in times of distress such as war is not only applicable to the Judeo-Christian belief but many beliefs. Golding is only paralleling Simon with Jesus, a prophet from the Judeo-Christian belief system, because he was more exposed to Judaism and Christianity in the United Kingdom during World War II. 

Another religious parallel used to develop the theme of man’s innate evil nature is the beast (Anjum, Nawaz, & Ramzan). The beast is a creature the kids fear and deem a symbol of malevolence. The beast is the equivalent of the Judeo-Christian belief’s devil. Golding believes that the devil is not an actual entity but a representation of the evil within man. When Simon goes into the forest by himself and confronts the beast, he sees that the beast is just the pilot of the airplane from the exposition of the story. The beast is not a mythical creature, but rather man himself. When Simon goes to rejoin the boys to tell him of his revelation, this is when he is murdered. 

Simon is a representation of a religious leader, and he was murdered by the boys he tried to lead (Spitz). If Golding is trying to say that a religious leader is a bad leader, then obviously the next answer is that a man of reason and/or a man of the people should be the leader for a fundamentally sound society. Fortunately, Piggy is very smart and reasonable and Ralph is very democratic. Unfortunately, Piggy is killed by the boys and the boys attempt to kill Ralph shortly before the naval officer saves them. Piggy has glasses, a symbol of his intelligence, and understands himself very well. Ralph created the rules of the conch and tried to respect freedom of speech. Despite these things, neither of these boys had a successful reign as ruler.

Finally, the last boy that functions as a ruler is Jack (Spitz). Jack was arguably the most progressive ruler, as he orchestrated a pig hunt that was successful. Due to Jack, the boys now had a large pig to feast on. Whereas Jack seemed to be a very dynamic leader, he was also aggressive. Jack’s rule resembled a dictatorship. Jack gave orders and the kids followed them regardless of the ethics behind the decision. When Jack orders them around during the hunting of the pig, they listen. Later when he orders his squadron of boys turned savages to hunt down Ralph, they also comply. Disregarding ethics is an easy way to accomplish one’s goals, but is obviously unethical and therefore bad for a society. Jack’s rise to power and his totalitarian rule can reflect how Golding felt about the rise of dictatorships during WWII.

Each child that functions as an authority figure in this story has some flaw, ultimately leading to some conflict or their own downfall (Spitz). Simon was a beneficial, just leader but his lack of aggression ultimately lead to his downfall. Jack was a very aggressive leader. Whereas his aggressive leadership got things accomplished, like capturing pigs, it ended up turning his men into murderous savages. These two leaders had drastically different ruling ideals, but both caused issues within their society. Due to man’s evil nature, any structure will fall because people will either take advantage of their leader or have their leader take advantage of them. This structural instability will eventually cause war and someone will be affected unfavorably. 

Despite starting off as a society of innocent children, the island quickly turns into a group of malicious, savage children (Golding). Multiple forms of leadership are attempted, but ultimately nothing works. The events that occur on the island are events that have occurred in societies before and will continue to occur, as history repeats itself.  Golding uses the events in Lord of the Flies to say that no matter what type of ruler or infrastructure is set up in a society, it will fail. Man is evil, men will turn on each other, and wars will ensue. 
