Lord of the Flies Research Paper Less than only a 100 years ago, mankind fought its greatest battle ever between the evil axis powers and the good allied powers. While I read the Lord of the Flies by William Golding in class i noticed some similarities between the story and World War 2. The book is about a group of school boys from England crash on a island in the Pacific Ocean during the second world war. The boys try to create their own civilization on the island but soon chaos erupts and savagery takes over civilization with kids being killed and tourchered. While reading the book i’ve noticed many connections that Golding made to events during World War 2, for example he had the main characters represent some of the world leaders during the war. Fear and intimidation play a significant role in the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, just as coercion and terror played a large role in the lives of the people ruled by the Axis Powers in WWII. The first connection I found in the book was the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The attack on Pearl Harbor was one of the most darkest days in American history when on December 7, 1941 on the island on Hawaii, Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese planes. The attack killed over 2000 people and “Twenty-one ships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet were sunk or damaged”(Military.com). This left a physical and emotional scar on the American people as they will never forget the attack and all of the lives that were lost. After Pearl Harbor;
Fear and intimidation play a significant role in the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, just as a coercion and fear played a large role in the lives of the people ruled by the Axis powers in WWII.
The Lord of the Flies is a story about a group of boys who are stranded on an island. There aren’t any adults with them because the plane they were on had crashed and the pilot died, he had been the only adult with them. That main character Ralph is elected chief of the boys and is supposed to be in charge, but finds it hard to keep control. Ralph believes the most important thing is to keep the fire going, so that if a ship passes by they can get rescued. As the story goes on dissent begins to form among the other boys. The leader of this dissent was Jack. He had wanted to have control from the beginning and was fed up with Ralph’s rules.
In the story “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, he shows how the boys lost all innocence and civilization. The boys went from having innocent child minds to taking lives of other people, acting savage, and losing all civilization due to problems on the island. The boys had forgotten where they came from and became savage in order to survive; it was the need of survival that caused the loss of innocence among the boys.
In the novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding the setting had a very strong influence in the actions and attitudes of the characters. Setting is the defined in literature as where the story takes place. In Lord of the Flies, the setting is on a deserted tropical island in the middle of the ocean, where a microcosm is able to be established.
In the novel, "Lord of the Flies," a group of British boys are left on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. Throughout the novel, they have conflicts between civilization and savagery, good vs. evil, order vs. chaos, and reason vs. impulse. What would it be like if the boys were replaced by a group of girls? Would they behave the same way they did in the novel? I believe that the girls would act in the same behavior as the boys in all ways because, everyone is installed with evil inside them which is their natural instinct, also because in life there is always a power struggle in all manners, and the outcome with the girls would be similar-since both sexes would plan on getting rescued.
Lord of the Flies has been considered a literary classic throughout many generations, in spite of it’s perplexing and depressing aspects. Written in 1954 with the timeframe of the next world war, a novel such as this is bound to have some out-dated concepts,language, and elements. The characters are a great example of this.
William Golding, author of the classic novel, Lord of the Flies, had a number of life experiences that impacted his view of the world and led to the creation of his book. The most prominent experience he has had might of been his time spent in the Royal Navy, which revealed a darkness in himself and his writing. This darkness was portrayed by the beast by aspects of War, Fear, and Savagery.
The boys chant, “Kill the beast, cut his throat spill his blood!” in chapter 9, while they horrifically murder Simon because they believe him to the beast. Golding never properly explains what exactly the beast is, though his heavy use of symbolism can give many clues. Whatever the beast is, it’s horrible enough to drive the boys to murder. Throughout Lord of the Flies, the beast takes many forms: it begins as fear, then morphs into war, which then combine to demonstrate the savagery of human nature.
Character Description- gives the reader the perspective of the lives of the "New People"; the artist
What do you picture in your mind when someone mentions a beast? Fangs? Claws? That is what the castaways believe the beast to look like on the island in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. The story follows several school boys who have crashed onto an exotic island. They elect a leader, Ralph, and they break up into groups: the hunters, the “littluns”, and the hut builders. Soon the “littluns" become frightened of a beast that no one has seen, and it becomes an obsession of the islanders. They interpret the beast in many ways, saying it comes from the water, the sky, and one of the boys even suggested that the beast was themselves. So, what is the beast? The beast could be a representation of war, fear, or human savagery.
“Stanley flicked his finger again. ‘I expect the beast disguised itself’”(Golding 161). In other words, it describes the disloyalty of others and the spies who hid amongst everyday people during World War II. The main topic I am researching is how fear played a role in Lord of the Flies and connecting it to World War II prisoners. What led me to this particular research is because the perspectives of the boys are easily connectable to the prisoners of war. In addition fear was a big obstacle during World War II just like it is in Lord of the Flies. In the book Lord of the Flies, fear is a constant obstacle for the boys and it is just like the obstacles of war prisoners and the terrors that ruled over them.
Symbolism is a very important factor in many books. The use of symbolism in William Golding’s novel The Lord of the Flies is the most essential aspect to the function of the story. At first glance you may not think the symbols are very important, but with some in-depth thought you can see how it is necessary to explain the microcosm of an island.
There are many novels that connect to different historical and social issues. Lord of the Flies by William Golding relates to World War 2, bullying, and competition. World War 2 is included as a historical event because of the time period the story takes place. Bullying and competition are used as social issues because the event occurs all around the world on a daily basis. The novel takes place in the 1950s, around the ending of the war.
The themes and issues in the novel the Lord of the Flies are still relevant today.The theme of mob mentality is still and has been relevant throughout history. We have seen it on large scales such as The Holocaust and The Salem Witch Trials, and on a smaller scale of bullying in schools. In 2014, a girl named Dana was subject to just that. A group of other 12 year old girls made a blog in Dana’s that insulted and bullied many kids at their school. The next day the girls blamed Dana for the blog and proceeded to harass her in real life. The blog was soon popularized by the kids in her grade. As soon as most of the kids heard that Dana was “responsible” for the blog, they started to call her names, threaten her and even throwing things at her.
World War II caused an amount of destruction and harm that no human being had ever seen before, many were disgusted and outraged by the results of this war. It was a very memorable event; one that authors tend to write about a lot, even to this day. One author in particular, WIlliam Golding, uses his world famous piece of literature Lord of the Flies as a political allegory to World War 2. In his classic novel, he shows little boys who are flown out to avoid the danger of being bombed and become trapped on an island. While they are trapped, the boys develop separate ways of leading each other which leads to conflict and violence, similar to the governments in which were clashing with each other during World War 2 at the time. Through the differences of these boys, Golding shows to us how they relate to the major leaders of World War 2 (Hitler, Franklin Roosevelt, and Neville Chamberlain), and how democracy is the best way to govern people.