Why should you read “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding? - Jill Dash — Transcript

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1. 0:06William Golding was losing his faith in humanity.
2. 0:10Serving aboard a British destroyer in World War II,
3. 0:13the philosophy teacher turned Royal Navy lieutenant was constantly confronted
4. 0:18by the atrocities of his fellow man.
5. 0:21And when he returned to England to find Cold War superpowers
6. 0:25threatening one another with nuclear annihilation,
7. 0:27he was forced to interrogate the very roots of human nature.
8. 0:31These musings on the inevitability of violence
9. 0:35would inspire his first and most famous novel: "Lord of the Flies."
10. 0:40After being rejected by 21 publishers,
11. 0:42the novel was finally published in 1954.
12. 0:46It takes its title from Beelzebub, a demon associated with pride and war—
13. 0:51two themes very much at the heart of Golding’s book.
14. 0:55The novel was a bleak satire of a classic island adventure story,
15. 0:59a popular genre where young boys get shipwrecked in exotic locations.
16. 1:04The protagonists in these stories are able to master nature
17. 1:08while evading the dangers posed by their new environments.
18. 1:11The genre also endorsed the problematic colonialist narrative
19. 1:15found in many British works at the time,
20. 1:17in which the boys teach the island’s native inhabitants
21. 1:20their allegedly superior British values.
22. 1:23Golding’s satire even goes so far as to explicitly use the setting
23. 1:28and character names from R.M. Ballantyne’s "Coral Island"—
24. 1:33one of the most beloved island adventure novels.
25. 1:36But while Ballantyne’s book promised readers
26. 1:38"pleasure... profit... and unbounded amusement,”
27. 1:42Golding’s had darker things in store.
28. 1:45"Lord of the Flies" opens with the boys already on the island,
29. 1:49but snippets of conversation hint at their terrifying journey—
30. 1:53their plane had been shot down in the midst of an unspecified nuclear war.
31. 1:58The boys, ranging in age from 6 to 13, are strangers to each other.
32. 2:03All except for a choir, clad in black uniforms and led by a boy named Jack.
33. 2:09Just as in Ballantyne’s "Coral Island,"
34. 2:11the boy’s new home appears to be a paradise—
35. 2:14with fresh water, shelter, and abundant food sources.
36. 2:18But even from the novel’s opening pages,
37. 2:21a macabre darkness hangs over this seemingly tranquil situation.
38. 2:26The boys’ shadows are compared to “black, bat-like creatures”
39. 2:30while the choir itself first appears as
40. 2:32“something dark... fumbling along” the beach.
41. 2:35Within hours of their arrival,
42. 2:37the boys are already trading terrifying rumors of a vicious “beastie”
43. 2:42lurking in the woods.
44. 2:44From these ominous beginnings,
45. 2:46Golding’s narrative reveals how quickly cooperation unravels
46. 2:50without the presence of an adult authority.
47. 2:53Initially, the survivors try to establish some sense of order.
48. 2:56A boy named Ralph blows into a conch shell to assemble the group,
49. 3:00and delegate tasks.
50. 3:02But as Jack vies for leadership with Ralph,
51. 3:05the group splinters and the boys submit to their darker urges.
52. 3:09The mob of children soon forgets their plans for rescue,
53. 3:12silences the few voices of reason,
54. 3:15and blindly follows Jack to the edge of the island, and the edge of sanity.
55. 3:20The novel’s universal themes of morality, civility, and society
56. 3:25have made it a literary classic,
57. 3:27satirizing both conventions of its time and long held beliefs about humanity.
58. 3:33While island adventure stories often support colonialism,
59. 3:36"Lord of the Flies" turns this trope on its head.
60. 3:39Rather than cruelly casting native populations as stereotypical savages,
61. 3:44Golding transforms his angelic British schoolboys into savage caricatures.
62. 3:50And as the boys fight their own battle on the island,
63. 3:52the far more destructive war that brought them there
64. 3:56continues off the page.
65. 3:57Even if the boys were to be rescued from themselves,
66. 4:00what kind of world would they be returning to?
67. 4:04With so few references to anchor the characters
68. 4:07in a specific place or period, the novel feels truly timeless—
69. 4:11an examination of human nature at its most bare.
70. 4:15And though not all readers may agree with Golding’s grim view,
71. 4:19"Lord of the Flies" is unsettling enough
72. 4:21to challenge even the most determined optimist.