a. To understand the historical background of Lord of the Flies. b. To learn about the author’s life and how it influenced his him to write this story. William Golding's Lord of the Flies explores the struggle between good and evil and was born out of the author's own life experiences. Golding fought in World War II and was part of a generation that witnessed some of man's cruelest acts. To many it seemed that what we gained in technological progress we lost in moral vision. Write a speech for an assembly where you reflect on the what influenced Golding to write Lord of the Flies. Start your piece with ‘William Golding wrote Lord of the Flies because he was interested in… ’ Include information about each of the following in your reflection. ❏ What do we learn about his biographical background? ❏ What experience did Golding have of war? ❏ What was life like during the 1950s? ❏ How did Golding’s experience of war influence his view of the nature of mankind? ❏ Extension ­ What is the significance of the title of this novel? Lord of the Flies is still a blueprint for savagery
By ELEANOR LEARMONTH , JENNY TABAKOFF Sunday 16 March 2014 "I'm afraid. Of us." Those words first appeared in print exactly 60 years ago when William Golding published his most famous novel, Lord of the Flies. It's easy to see how Golding got the inspiration for his tale of humanity red in tooth and claw: he had served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War and wrote Lord of the Flies while teaching boys at Bishop Wordsworth's School. The central symbol itself, the “lord of the flies” [physically represented in the novel by the pig’s head Jack’s tribe mounts on a sharpened stick, and abstractly represented by the boy’s gradual descent into anarchy and violence] . . . is a translation of the Hebrew Ba’alzevuv (Beelzebub in Greek). It has been suggested that it was a mistranslation of a mistransliterated word which gave us the pungent and suggestive name for the Devil, a devil whose name suggests that he is devoted to decay, destruction, demoralization, hysteria, and panic and who therefore fits very well in Golding’s theme. As a child and adolescent William Golding like others in the innocent years before the War, had a fundamentally simple conception of the world. In a generic mode of thinking, during the years before the massive cruelty, devastation, and destruction wrought by World War II the prevailing concept of man and society included two basic viewpoints: man was essentially good and society was inherently evil. Golding's belief in this concept can be seen in his childhood reading choices, which included adventure stories like Tarzan of the Apes, Coral Island, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea. These stories featured good and pure men in their struggle against the evils of society. Golding's opinions toward mankind and society changed with the course of the war. The single event in Golding's life that most affected his writing of Lord of the Flies, however, was probably his service in World War II. Raised in the sheltered environment of a private English school, Golding was unprepared for the violence unleashed by the war. Joining the Navy, he was injured in an accident involving detonators early in the war, but later was given command of a small rocket­launching craft. Golding was present at the sinking of the Bismarck—the crown ship of the German Navy—and also took part in the D­Day landings in France in June 1944. He later described his experience in the war as one in which "one had one's nose rubbed in the human condition." His experience included clashes with enemy naval vessels as well as participation in the Walcheren and D­Day operations. He witnessed firsthand the terrible destructive power of man operating during war, essentially outside the restrictive limits of society. With war as his tutor, he began to view man, instead, as a creature with a very dark and evil side to his nature. Lord of the Flies, as well as Golding's other works, essentially explores the dark side of what Golding felt was the true nature of man: evil. He realized that human beings are not naturally kind and that even children are capable of incredible cruelty if they needed to be. He was horrified by man’s capacity to harm fellow humans, how goodies could become baddies. "When I was young, before the war, I did have some airy­fairy views about man. . . . But I went through the war and that changed me. The war taught me different and a lot of others like me," Golding told Douglas A. Davis in the New Republic. Golding was referring to his experiences as captain of a British rocket­launching craft in the North Atlantic. According to Golding ‘Before the Second World War I believed in the perfectibility of social man; that a correct structure of society would produce goodwill; and that therefore you could remove all social ills by a reorganization of society. It is possible that today I believe something of the same again; but after the war I did not because I was unable to. I had discovered what one man could do to another. I am not talking of one man killing another with a gun, or dropping a bomb on him or blowing him up or torpedoing him. I am thinking of the vileness beyond all words that went on, year after year, in the totalitarian states. It is bad enough to say that so many Jews were exterminated in this way and that, so many people liquidated—lovely, elegant word—but there were things done during that period from which I still have to avert my mind lest I should be physically sick. They were not done by the head­hunters of New Guinea, or by some primitive tribe in the Amazon. They were done, skilfully, coldly, by educated men, doctors, lawyers, by men with a tradition of civilization behind them, to beings of their own kind.’ He wanted, he said, to explore the evolution of society, from chaos to collective action, and show the origins of the divisions that civilised societies in order to further collective good by the executive action of the few. He was about nothing less than the important task of showing how a slowly nurtured democracy can collapse in the face of the lust for power, how religious instincts can be perverted into becoming a cloak for brutality and how the competition for scarce resources can betray humans into revealing their fundamentally animal nature in the space of a few short months. He had been in the war. He had seen some terrible things. He was also directly affected by the devastation of England by the German air force, which severely damaged the nation's infrastructure and marked the beginning of a serious decline in the British economy. Wartime rationing continued well into the postwar period. Items like meat, bread, sugar, gasoline, and tobacco were all in short supply and considered luxuries. The lack of food in Britain meant that items we take for granted today such as bananas and oranges were thought of as luxuries. Food plays a large part in Lord of the Flies. Think about the food available to the boys and the role of hunting in the group. Hunting is the major driving force behind Jack's actions. After the war, the British people still suffered through the hardships left over from the War. For example, building work after German bombing took place, but the traditional British stiff upper­lip was also a common way of life. There was still a shortage of everyday items such as clothes and "make do and mend" was still common practice. Think about the importance of clothes in the novel ­ uniforms in particular. At the end of the book, before Ralph goes to Castle Rock to confront Jack, he attempts to dress himself. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..