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William Golding's Lord Of The Flies

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William Golding said, “One of our faults is to believe that evil is somewhere else and inherent in another nation” (Hot Gates 89). His novel Lord of the Flies was published in 1954, less than a decade after the completion of World War II. Golding served in the navy from 1941 to 1945, and this time of service heavily impacted his view of the world and the nature of its people. It also opened his eyes to the role that evil can have and the individual people within any society throughout time. He delves into the possible defect in human nature, as seen through the internal grief caused by the visceral nature of humanity to be evil. William Golding utilizes personal experiences from his life and role in World War II to explore the inherent presence …show more content…

Golding described himself as a “non-Marxist Socialist, ‘bitterly left of centre’” (Reilly ix). This position provides insight for the allegorical nature of his novel, Lord of the Flies. While in college, Golding developed a cynicism for rationalism that transcend into his writing. His distrust and mocking of well-known rationalists is a result of his disbelief in the philosophies of rationalism. He saw “a liberal and naive belief in the perfectibility of man” within his generation; however, Golding first-handedly observed how this belief altered with the residual effects of war (Hot Gates …show more content…

Golding confessed “that he had learnt to understand the nature of small boys with ‘awful precision’ because he had introduced ‘a certain measure of experimental science’ into his teachings” (Carey 126). He restrained the adult influence in his classroom, thus removing the authority figure and allowing liberties to the point that the space becomes conducive of anything, namely chaos. Although the boys that he taught we not exact models for any specific characters in Lord of the Flies, Golding told them “they might recognize bits of” themselves in the novel (Carey 127). This real-life experimentation, although morally questionable, enlightened Golding to the manners and habits exhibited by a group of boys when given absolute freedom. This lack of restrictions allowed room for characteristics to manifest, and also for primal instincts to be

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