Lord Of The Flies: Defects Of Society Due To Nature Of Individuals :: essays research papers

Lord of THe Flies Defects of Society Due to Nature of IndividualsThe venturesome novel, Lord of the Flies, is an enchanting,audacious account that depicts the defects of society as the disobedient natureof individuals when they are immature and without an overlooking authority. Theauthor of the novel, William Golding, was born in Britain, which accounts forthe English, cultured characters in the novel. After studying science at OxfordUniversity for two years, he changed his emphasis as a major to Englishliterature. When World War II broke out in 1939, Golding served in the RoyalNavy for quintette years. The atrocities he witnessed changed his view aboutmankinds essential nature. He came to believe that there was a genuinely dark andevil side to man, which accounts for the savage nature of the children in thenovel. He said, "The fight was unlike any other fought in Europe. It taught usnot fighting, politics, or the follies of nationalism, but about the givennature of man.&quo t After the war he returned to teaching and wrote his first novel,Lord of the Flies, which was finally accepted for publication in 1954. In 1983,the novel received the Noble Prize and the statement, "His books are veryentertaining and exciting. . . . They have aroused an unusually great interestin professional literary critics (who find) deep strata of ambiguity andcomplication in Goldings work. . . ." (Noble Prize committee) almost conceivedthe novel as bombastic and didactic. Kenneth Rexroth stated in the Atlantic,"Goldings novels are rigged.. . . The boys never come alive as real boys. . . ." Other critics see him as the greatest English writer of our time. In theCritical Quarterly in 1960, C.B. Cox deemed Lord of the Flies as "probably themost important novel to be published. . . in the 1950s."     The setting of the novel takes place on an island in the Pacific Ocean.The author never actually locates the island in the real world or s tates the get time period. The author does state that the plane carrying the childrenhad been shot down in a nuclear war, so the time period must be after the makingand the use of nuclear weapons. Even though the location of the island is notdefinite, the author vividly describes the setting. Golding tells us that theisland is tropical and shaped like a boat. At the low end are the jungle and theorchards, which rise up to the treeless and rocky mountain ridge. The beach,