"Lord of the Flies" is an allegorical novel by Nobel Prize-winning author
William Golding. This is his first published novel.
It discusses how culture created by man fails. He uses as an example an adventure of British school-boys who, stuck on a deserted island, try to govern themselves with disastrous results.
The story takes place on an isolated island in which a plane, carrying a group of schoolboys, is marooned. Soon, they degenerate into barbarism for survival. Two English boys, Ralph, fair-haired Ralph and overweight, and Piggy, the bespectacled boy, begin to make sense of their new surroundings. The boys soon find a white conch shell and Piggy suggests that Ralph use it as a horn to call for any other survivors. Ralph then initiates the first
assembly where all of the survivors are revealed to be male children, none over the age of thirteen.
Immediately, the survivors have two dominant boys: Ralph, and Jack Merridew, another older boy, the head of a choir group that also landed on the island. Ralph is voted chief. He calls everyone to work toward two common goals, the first being to have fun and the second to be rescued by creating a constant fire signal, to be lit by using Piggy's glasses. They work towards building shelters, gathering food, and keeping the fire going.
Jack, obviously envious of Ralph's leadership, becomes an immediate threat to Ralph. Jack, and Simon, a black-haired boy, assisted Ralph to look around the island to ensure there are no unnecessary threats. Piggy, the most sensible of the group, quickly becomes outcast by his fellow "biguns" (a bit over 13 years old) and becomes an unwilling source of laughter for the others. Ralph, as the leader of building shelters, feels an instinctive need to protect the "littluns" (younger than 13.)
Many of the "littluns" have started believing that the island is inhabited by a monster, they call "the beast" and they are scared. Identical twins Sam and Eric, called the "Samneric," are in charge of the signal fire that night. They suddenly find a corpse and open parachute of a fighter pilot who has landed on the island. They believe it to be a beast, reporting it during the next assembly. In looking for the pilot, Ralph and Jack come upon a cavernous part of the island they name "Castle Rock." Ralph and Jack find the dead pilot on top of the mountain and indeed mistake it to be the sleeping beast. Jack blows the conch to call another assembly, confirming the beast's existence to the others. The assembly results in disagreements, splitting the children into two groups. Ralph's group continues holding the belief that preserving the signal fire is the necessary focus. Jack becomes the leader of his own group, focusing on hunting at the same time exploiting the belief in the beast. Jack and the hunters, having killed their first pig, gain defectors from Ralph's group, having been promised meat and protection from the beast. Gradually, Jack's group becomes more animalistic.
Simon, with Ralph's group, finds the head of the hunters' dead pig on a stick, left as an offering to the beast. He undergoes a hallucination in which he sees the pig head, swarming with scavenging flies, as the "Lord of the Flies." Simon believes that it is talking to him, as if it's the real "beast" telling him that the boys themselves "created" the beast, and that the real beast was inside them all. Simon also finds the dead parachuter who has been mistaken for the beast. He is the only one in the group who accepts that it is a cadaver rather than a sleeping monster. When Simon arrives at the peak of a tribal ritual at Jack's group, he tries to explain the truth about the beast and the dead man on the mountain. Jack's tribe, hungry with bloodlust from their first kill, savagely attack and murder Simon, believing him to be the beast in the shadows.
Jack's group then raid Ralph's camp, attacking the non-hunters in order to steal Piggy's glasses for making a cooking fire. This time, Ralph's group consists of Piggy, Sam and Eric. They all go to the rock fort of Jack's tribe at Castle Rock to try to get back Piggy's glasses. During the confrontation, Roger triggers a rock ambush in which Piggy is struck and dies. Eric and Sam are captured and tortured by Roger to become part of Jack's tribe. Ralph, now completely alone, is forced to flee to save himself. Now ultimate savages, Jack and Roger, go an all out manhunt for Ralph, intending to kill him.
An officer of a navy lands near where Ralph is lying. His appearance stops the children's fighting. On learning of the boys' activities, the officer remarks that he would have expected better from British boys, believing them only to be playing a game. the officer is not aware of the murders that have taken place. In the final scene, Ralph, certain of his safety. cries for the loss of his friend Piggy, his own loss of innocence, and his realization of the darkness in human beings.
William Golding's use of an effective symbolism allows it to work as an allegory of the fallen nature of humankind.