Question 3

"The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away." - Lord of the Flies
The story of Lord of the Flies opens up with a group of tweenish English boys stranded on a deserted island. They try to form an upstanding society because "...We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything.'" However, the longer they spend on the island, they more they degenerate into savagery and start losing what made them human. This is most evident on Jack and Roger, two kids who become so enamored with power and blood-lust they become a shell of who they used to be. This all plays into the hands of William Golding, who used this novel as an allegory of what falls when society breaks down and all hell breaks loose.

Within Lord of the Flies, there are many kids, each who represent a different part of society. Ralph represents morality and the social compass. Piggy represents science. Simon represents religion. Jack represents anarchy. Roger represents chaos and blood-lust. And the conch represents democracy. At first, all seems well. The kids are working together, and there is an organized form of government. However, things start to degenerate right from the start. With no form of supervision, kids start doing less and less work due to boredom and knowing they can get away with it. Jack, in his jealousy over Ralph's popularity, keeps trying to usurp Ralph but failing. The kids start developing paranoia about the island, thinking there's a beast that is tracking them. Jack and his hunting group become more and more brutal in their way of hunting, culminating in their brutish killing of Simon and Roger dropping a boulder on Piggy. Eventually, Jack tortures the rest to go on a manhunt for Ralph, effectively setting fire to the entire island in the process. This all culminates into the kids running into the ship captain, with each kid realizing how much innocence they had lost in the process.

This all naturally plays into the hands of William Golding, who wanted to create an allegory about the fall of society. The conch, a symbol of democracy, becomes nothing when others refuse to give it meaning. Religion, like Simon, is quick to follow suit of the conch. Knowledge, much like Piggy, will be accepted when it is useful, denied when not in use, and then eliminated when it goes against the status quo. Morality, much like Ralph, will hold out as long as it can, but eventually it will be so minuscule compared to the savagery and brutality of everyone else. Eventually, the savagery will try to eliminate the morality once and for all, leaving a destructive path in its wake. If society is left to its own supervision, then paranoia and mistrust will set in, creating a dog-eat-dog world where nobody wins and everybody loses.

With Lord of the Flies, William Golding is able to create an effective allegory about the fall of society, while also making it accessible to younger audiences. By using an abandoned island as his setting, he is able provide another allegory to also fit his message, one that makes sense entirely. All of which allows him to create an effective story about he fall of man.