Lord of the Flies: Context (AQA GCSE English Literature)

It is easy to spend a long time revising context. However, if you keep your revision focused on the themes of the novel, your exam responses will be equally focused and awarded high marks. Each of the below topics links directly to Golding’s ideas in Lord of the Flies:

• The consequences of war
• Loss of innocence
• Social class
• Christianity

• William Golding served in the British Navy during World War II
• His experiences of warfare – and witnessing first-hand the evils of which man is capable in war – informed the writing of Lord of the Flies:
• Although it could be argued that the Nazis’ dehumanisation of and evil committed against the Jewish race shaped his pessimistic view of human nature, it was also the acts he saw perpetrated by the British that shocked him:
• He later said that war enabled him to “see what people were capable of doing”
• He was as disturbed by the [popover id="lZzJFJzWXYg5t6dK" label="Allie]’ behaviour during the war, including the dropping of the atom bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
• The US dropped nuclear bombs on two Japanese cities in 1945, killing an estimated 200,000 civilians
• This seems to align with his view in Lord of the Flies that everyone is capable of evil:
• Even Ralph and Piggy take part in the murder of Simon
• Since Ralph and Piggy represent “civilised society” then perhaps Golding is arguing that even a war waged in the name of civilisation can lead to acts of evil
• Golding wrote Lord of the Flies during the Cold War
• The Cold War was a rivalry between the Soviet Union and the West, and can be seen as a war between two very different styles of government:
• The West championed democracy and free speech
• The Soviet Union was seen by the West as authoritarian and autocratic
• It is, therefore, possible to see in Lord of the Flies a parallel to this clash of civilisations, with Ralph representing democracy and free speech (the West), while Jack represents the negative Western view of the Soviet Union
• However, Golding doesn’t seem to suggest that either side is blameless for the evil that is perpetrated on the island:
• The littlun who perishes in the fire in Chapter 2 is not protected by Ralph’s democratic government
• All sides take part in the murder of Simon
• Although Jack’s tyranny is clearly detrimental, it is perhaps the battle between the two sides that causes the greatest harm
• It is the conflict between Ralph and Jack’s ideologies, and the fact that they cannot come to an agreement, that causes the death of Piggy
• However you read Golding’s intentions in Lord of the Flies it is clear that:
• Golding believes that all of humanity has the capacity for evil
• Golding argues that warfare brings this impulse to the surface

• William Golding spent more than 20 years as a teacher of young boys:
• It is not a coincidence, then, that his characters in Lord of the Flies are schoolchildren
• He had first-hand experience of the interactions of young people with each other, including their relationships and cruelties
• Golding wanted to explore the notion of childhood innocence:
• What made children capable of evil? 
• Did external factors result in this loss of innocence?
• Or is the idea that children are ever innocent wrong?
• He taught English and philosophy, and was fascinated by morality and human nature:
• Lord of the Flies can be seen as a philosophical text which seeks to identify the source of human evil
• He later said that Lord of the Flies was "an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature”:
• This suggests that Golding believed it was not external factors that caused human beings to act in an evil way, but human nature itself
• Golding famously remarked that “Man produces evil as a bee produces honey”
• In the novel, the rules and social and moral codes of society are absent
• Although it could be argued that the boys on the island copy the behaviour of the adults engaged in warfare, it is perhaps more true to say that it is the absence of these social norms that allow the boys’ true nature to emerge:
• This nature is cruel and capable of shocking violence
• As the boys become further and further removed from the society they once knew, they become more capable of evil:
• Hunting – and then killing – the pigs makes it easier to commit violent acts against each other
• Wearing face-paint frees them of the “self-consciousness” of civilisation
• Having longer hair and wearing fewer clothes removes the physical markers of society
• Jack and the hunters’ speech becomes more primal and monosyllabic
• The boys engage in more and more “savage” practices, like ritual ceremonies and dances
• The boys become more and more dehumanised as the novel progresses
•  It is a deliberate choice by Golding that the character of “Piggy” is killed:
• He is dehumanised to the extent that he is referred to as an animal
• He is treated like the boys’ treat the island’s other animals, leading to him being killed
• But it could be said that the boys all treat each other less like human beings, and more like beasts, as the novel progresses
• The loss of innocence of the boys results, therefore, not from external factors, but because the lack of civilised rules and customs reveals their true nature:
• This nature, according to Golding, is capable of great evil, even if they are just children

• England in the 1950s was a very class-based society:
• People born into the middle or upper classes had advantages over those born into the working class:
• Working-class people had low status
• Most top positions in government, or business, were held by middle- or upper-class people
• In Lord of the Flies, there is a clear distinction between Piggy (who is working class) and the rest of the boys:
• Piggy has an accent which highlights his low social status
• Ralph says his father is a commander in the English Navy, which highlights his family’s high status
• We can assume that most of the boys have been educated in private schools, while Piggy’s grammatical errors suggest that he hasn’t been
• As a result of being working class, and thus being of a lower status, Piggy is treated badly by the other boys:
• He is mocked for his accent and his ungrammatical speech
• Piggy is dehumanised to the extent that the other boys never ask him his real name and is only referred to by a cruel nickname
• He is verbally and physically abused by Jack
• Despite his absolute loyalty to his leadership, Ralph never stands up for or defends Piggy
• The fact that even his ally, Ralph, never defends Piggy from abuse, suggests that Golding thinks that class is a powerful – and harmful – social force:
• Golding writes at one point that: “There had grown up tacitly among the biguns the opinion that Piggy was an outsider”
• This is despite the fact that Piggy is clearly the most intelligent boy on the island, and devoutly loyal to Ralph and his leadership
• Golding seems to suggest that the English class system neglects intelligence and talent in favour of status and reputation:
• Because he is working class, Piggy could never hold a leadership position, however suitable he might be

• There is a lot of Christian imagery in Lord of the Flies, but William Golding is not attempting to create a straightforward religious allegory:
• Instead, he uses religious symbolism to explore ideas about human nature, and human goodness and evil
• It is unclear whether Golding himself believed in God, but he was certainly raised in a household that did not practise Christianity:
• His father was a science teacher and an atheist
• However, Golding himself was upset when he discovered his father’s atheism, and was himself a spiritual – if not traditionally Christian – man
• Rather than interrogating the existence of Heaven, Hell or God, Golding was more interested in exploring ideas around moral responsibility and humanity’s good and evil:
• These are themes that are prevalent in all of Golding’s novels
• In Lord of the Flies, he uses Christian religious symbolism to explore ideas about morality and good and evil:
• Simon can be interpreted as a symbol of Jesus Christ
• The island itself can be seen to represent the Garden of Eden
• The sacrificial pig’s head could be seen as representing the Devil
• However, Golding isn’t commenting on Christianity directly with these references, or the existence of external evil (from the Devil, for example):
• Instead, Golding concludes that the source of humanity’s evil is human nature itself:
• The boys themselves are the cause of all evil on the island
• His view is pessimistic: 
• Simon is killed because of humanity’s inherent savagery
• The island (a kind of paradise) is destroyed by the boys’ desire to kill
• The sacrificial pig’s head is not some external force; Simon is terrorised by his own imagination