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Lord of the Flies was written by Wilson Golding and was first published in 1959. It is a novel about a group of kids who were traveling in a plane that crashed on a desert island. It is an adventure story. William Gerald Golding was born on September 19, 1911, in Cornwall, England. His father was a schoolmaster and his mother worked in the suffragette movement. Golding complied with his parents' wishes and studied science from his grammar school days through his second year at college. However, he decided to reject the sciences to study English literature. He discovered and became fascinated by Anglo-Saxon literature while at Oxford. The anonymous epic The Battle of Maldon has a major inflence on his work; he also wrote poetry for a brief period of time. In 1940 he entered the Royal Navy in which he served with distinction on minesweepers, destroyers, and finally rocket launchers. Golding returned to teaching and writing after the war. He had little luck getting his novels published, which is why he turned to writing for sheer pleasure; the resultwas Lord of the Flies published in 1954, the novel soared to great success. Golding's other novels include Pincher Martin, Free Fall, The Inheritors, The Spire, and The Pyramid. Golding lives with his wife and two children in Wiltshire, England. The story takes place on a large deserted island. It had a forest, and coast. "The Beach between the palm terrace and the water was a thick stick, endless apparently, for to Ralph's left the prespectives of palm and beach and water drew to the point of infinity." The island was extremely large and itwas easy to get lost. Also, on the island were coconuts and wild pigs to eat. The story starts when a plane crashed on a deserted island. The only survivors are a group of young boys. A boy named Ralph is named theleader. Ralph tells the boys to make a fire to signal planes. This did not work; thefire died out. Later, the boys select a new leader, Jack. He turns out to be a bad leader. He does not worry about being rescued. He lets the boys play all day. After a while, the boys become selfish and violent. They hunt for food and fight among themselves. They steal from the other boys in Ralph's group, and even kill a boy named Piggy from that group. Ralph runs away because the death makes Ralph angry. The other boys find out that he ran into the forest, and then set the forest on fire. Ralph then escapes to the shore, on the shore Ralph finds out an airplane has landed. Ralph finally rescued them. Ralph is one of the older boys on the island and remains the leader through most of the action. Ralph's psychological development from childhood to maturation is the axis about which the novel revolves. Ralph's main antagonist in his struggle is Jack Merridew, leader of the choirboys and eventually chief hunter. Ralph's stands for common sense and a desire for normal civilized life, in opposition to Jack's fierce world of hunting. Jack Merridew is Ralph's principal antagonist. He is leader of a group of choirboys and ultimately chief of the hunters. His role as villain is fairly clear from the beginning. Jack is destined to be the primary cause of destruction on the island. Jack does feel some regrets for the blood on his hands. Piggy is physically weak, but he often perceives, where the others cannot. He is usually ignored because of his appearance and manner. He becomes close friends with Ralph as the two are exiled by the savages. Piggy is finally killed by a large boulder released by Roger. Simon is a boy set apart from the rest by what they think is his peculiar behavior. He is bashful in public. He often wanders off alone. He has absolutely no fear of the dark jungle. It is Simon who learns the truth about the beast on the mountain and the Lord of the Flies. The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system. The story examines the various ways of organizing and governing a group that have been developed and shows the defects of each.
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