Book review

Introduction

Lord of the Flies is written by an English author William Golding, who even won Nobel Prize. This book was first published in 1954. There have also been three film adaptations of Lord of the Flies, in 1963, 1976 and in 1990.

This is the movie version filmed in 1990 on YouTube.

 

My thoughts:

I think this book was a very interesting piece of work. The story was actually really thrilling and exciting. Since the first chapter, the story pulls you into its plot. I expected this book would be an standard adventure book, but it was more horrifying than adventurous. What I liked about this book was its rich usage of allegories, metaphors and personifications, which made the plot even more interesting and slow-motion like. Although I liked that this book tells us about the human bad side and our savagery, I think it was too provoking, drastic and brutal for my taste.

This book is very hard to rate, because although it is very well written and thrilling, I did not like the plot the best.

Overall I did not love this book, but I quite liked it.

 

What it is about:

Lord of the Flies is a book about a group of boys, who crashed-landed on an unknown island. These boys are there alone, without any grown-ups, and they, without any hope, try to be rescued. The leader, Ralph, and his friend Piggy have very good ideas how to get rescued. For example to keep fire lighting, to build shelters, and to follow every rules they have. There is also a conch that symbolizes their civilization. If someone wants to talk he needs to hold the conch. One of the biggest worries of the boys is a beast living on the island. Jack, the oldest boy, begins to hunt pigs, and decides to kill the beast. Ralph, Piggy and Simon realize the beast is not real, and it is only the desperate imagination in their minds. Most of the boys decide to follow Jack instead of Ralph. Because of the joy of killing and the fear of a beast living on the island, the boys are facing the loss of their civilization and they kill two boys, Simon and Piggy. A fight starts between the civilization of the boys against the savagery in their minds. What will happen next? Will all of the boys survive? Will they be rescued?
This whole book tells us about the savagery in all of us, and that everybody has a good and a dirty side in their souls. How does the dark side express in this book through the boys? The theme of Lord of the Flies is the fight between the human impulse towards savagery and the rules and regimes of the civilization. When the walls of civilization are removed, humans go to their cruel and barbaric side, where killing becomes normal.

A pig's head= Lord of the Flies

Piggy and Ralph in the film

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The author

Basic information:

The author of Lord of the Flies is William Golding, who was an English novelist, a playwright, and a poet. He also won a Nobel Prize in Literature, and he is best known for his novel Lord of the Flies.

William Golding's signature

His family:

In 1939 Golding married Ann Brookfield, an analytic chemist. They had two children, Judith and David.

Golding's family on a vacation 

William Golding with his daughter, Judith

His timeline:

• 19/9/1911- He was born in St. Columb Minor, near Newquay in England

• 1935- Golding graduated at Brasenose College in Oxford, after he had been educated at Marlborough Grammar School.

• 1940- He joined the  Royal Navy

  

  The Royal Navy

• 1954- He published his first novel- Lord of the Flies

  

  Golding's first novel

• 1983- He won a Nobel Prize in Literature

Nobel Foundation cited:

"...his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world today".

•  1988- He was knighted

• 19/6/1993-William Golding died

Here are some interesting facts about William Golding

 



The background history

The time in which the novel is set:

The novel was written after a lot of fights and conflicts, in 1954. This book must had been inspired by a lot of things that had happened, and so they gave Golding some ideas about the world. These are some historical facts, that were going on in the time of Golding's life and Lord of the Flies:

• William Golding wrote the book shortly after the World War II
  

  

  Airplanes from the WW II

• Fighting- Golding worked in command of a small rocket ship in Royal Navy and he was involved in the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck
  

  

  The German battleship Bismarck

  After Golding's World War II experiences, he has said: 

“I began to see what people were capable of doing. Anyone who moved through those years without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey, must have been blind or wrong in the head.”

• Atom bombs threatened England in a war against "the reds"

• The Nazi concentration camps
  

  

  A Nazi concentration camp

  

  Children prisoners of the Nazi concentration camps

This is a video about the Nazi concentration camps.

 

• The Japanese mistreated their prisoners

• The British and American mass bombing against civilians

• The Coral Island- It is a book about boys, who also try to survive on an island. However these boys are friendly and peaceful all the time. This book was published in 1858, and about 100 years later Golding wanted to write a similar book, but with a realistic plot, that the boys actually go savage, because in Coral Island, everybody stay civilized and friendly. Therefore Golding wanted to show, how the real world looked like. He realized the world is not beautiful all the time, and it can be cruel, such as in the World War II, the Nazi concentration camps or the mass bombing against civilians. So he wanted to write a book, how it would actually look in the real life.

  

  The peaceful Coral Island