Modern texts, Year 11: a novel written after the Second World War, symbols, setting and language (Lord of the Flies option)

1954

HintIn the decade after the Second World War.

The whyIt was Golding's first novel. Many publishers turned it down before Faber and Faber took it, and the first printing of 3,000 copies sold slowly.

The Royal Navy: he commanded a landing craft on D-Day

HintHe knew war at first hand.

The whyWilliam Golding had been a philosophy teacher before the war. His experience of violence shaped his view of what human beings are capable of.

The Coral Island

HintAn adventure story for boys in which they stay civilised.

The whyThat novel praises the civilising influence of the British. Golding thought it unrealistic and asked what children would really do.

The Cold War and the danger of nuclear destruction

HintA conflict between two superpowers, without direct fighting.

The whyThe novel's war background and the nuclear evacuation that was cut from the first draft come from this fear. Golding wanted to explore what people are like when civilisation fails.

Strangers from Within

HintThe title said where the danger lay.

The whyAn editor thought the title unsuitable. The idea of strangers within the boys matches the novel's message.

The hope of rescue and the link with civilisation

HintRalph keeps returning to it as the sign of what matters.

The whyOne reading: the fire starts as hope, and in the last chapter becomes a weapon. The same object serves both sides of the novel.

The beast within every human being: the evil that civilisation holds back

HintIt is a thing the boys offered, which spoke to Simon.

The whySimon's imagined dialogue with it is the novel's key moment. One reading is that the head shows that evil cannot be killed by hunting.

It looks like a paradise, but turns into a place of fear and death

HintBeauty can be the setting for horror.

The whyThe island seems to promise freedom and adventure, the opposite of what happens there. Golding uses the contrast to make the descent into savagery more shocking.

What children would be like without adult rules to control them

HintThe experiment needs the adults to be absent.

The whyThe book works like a laboratory of human nature. Without adult control the boys build a society, and then destroy it.

The characters and events stand for larger ideas, such as order, savagery and the nature of humanity

HintPeople and objects mean more than themselves.

The whyRalph, Jack and Piggy stand for ideas as well as being realistic boys. Golding makes them fully developed characters so they are not simple labels.