Lord of the Flies

Title: Lord of the Flies

Author: William Golding

ISBN: 9780399501487

Publisher: Perigee Books

Copyright: (1959)

Genre: Fiction

Age Range: 14+

Reader’s Annotation: Adolescent boys struggle on an island to survive and create their own savage order.

Plot Summary: During World War Two, a British plane crashes on a deserted island. The only survivors are a group of boys. There is an overweight boy named Piggy and Ralph. Ralph uses a conch shell to call all the survivors into one place. Because of this, he is made the leader. The conch is made the item that is held and allows the person holding it to speak at meetings. Ralph sets up two goals: to have fun and keep a smoke signal going to alert any planes or ships to their presence on the island.

            Jack Merridew, the choir leader, organizes his choir boys into a hunting party that is responsible for food. A boy named Simon is made in charge of constructing shelters. There are two age groups surviving together: the older boys like Ralph or “biguns” and the smaller boys or “littluns.” Simon is made in charge of the little kids. Piggy is made an outcast for his size and asthma and is constantly made the butt of all jokes. The established order does not last long as the boys see little use of the shelters in such perfect weather. They grow paranoid of what lurks in the forest manifesting the name “the beast.” Soon after, there is a power struggle between Ralph and Jack. At one point, Jack summons all of his hunters to hunt down a wild pig, drawing away those assigned to maintain the signal fire. A ship passes by without stopping because the signal fire went out. Angry with the rest of the boys, Ralph wants to quit being leader, but is dissuaded by Piggy. The twins Sam and Eric tend the signal fire and mistake the corpse of a fighter pilot and his parachute for the beast. Sam and Eric run into the shelters and cause a panic. Jack, Ralph, and Roger go to a mountain of stones, later called Castle Rock, on the other side of the island where Jack claims the beast lives. Ralph turns around shortly after leaving. Jack and Roger come back. Jack challenges Ralph for the leadership of the group. He loses. Jack and Roger go off to make their own tribe. They lure more and more boys away with feasts of cooked pig. The new tribe paints their bodies and lays tributes to the imaginary beast.

            Simon wanders the forest. He finds a pig head left for tribute and imagines it is talking to him telling him that the beast is the savagery inside of them. Simon is the only one to realize the beast is the corpse of the dead pilot. Simon finds Jack’s tribe in the island interior during a ritual dance. Mistaken for the beast, Simon is killed by the crazed boys. Jack gets it in their head that he should have Piggy’s glasses, the source of fire starting on the island. They steal the glasses while raiding Ralph’s encampment and head back to Castle Rock. Ralph, Piggy, and two other boys head out to Castle Rock to demand the glasses back. During the confrontation, the two boys are abducted. Roger drops a boulder from on top that crushes Piggy and the conch shell. The order on the island is broken. Ralph escapes into the forest. The next day, Jack and his savages start the search for Ralph and set the island forest ablaze. Will Ralph be able to survive this terrible manhunt?

Critical Evaluation: While Lord of the Flies was not an istant success in 1955, by the 1960s it became required reading in most schools and colleges throughout the United States. It was named one of the best novels written in the twentieth century by TIME magazine. It was also listed as number forty-one on the editor’s list and number twenty-five on the reader’s list from Modern Library 100 Best Novels. While Lord of the Flies is a book about middle school students gone wild, it is an important book to have in a high school aged collection because it is often a mandatory read at some point in a student’s career. It is also a story that tells of the savagery that people are capable of if they let themselves get whipped up into a frenzy. There are also lessons about being able to stand up for what is right and being able to have individual thoughts. These are all different life lessons that teens need to learn as they develop morally.

Author Information: William Golding was born September 19, 1911, in Saint Columb Minor, Cornwall, England. In 1935 he started teaching English and philosophy in Salisbury. He temporarily left teaching in 1940 to join the Royal Navy. In 1954 he published his first novel, Lord of the Flies. In 1983, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. On June 19, 1993, he died in Perranarworthal, Cornwall, England. Source - http://www.biography.com/people/william-golding-9314523#awesm=~oDHi1BXA50YXjk

Curriculum Ties: Social Studies, Psychology, History

Challenge Issues: Violence

Booktalk Ideas: Island – Put the teens into the mindset that they are on a deserted island. Talk about the different food, water, and governing issues as a way into the book.