The novel Lord of the Flies was wrote by a guy named William Gerald Golding. Born on September 19, 1911, his parents wanted him to pursue a career in science and it wasn't until his second year in college that he decided to pursue a literary career. Lord of the Flies was his first novel published and it appeared in 1954, when he was only 43. Just the next year, 1955, he published a second novel called The Inheritors because of the great success of his first novel. Since then he has published many more novels and even a play called Brass Butterfly. Presently he is living in England with his wife Ann, and they have had two children.
The novel Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel meaning that its main ideas and themes are represented throughout the novel by symbols. Lord of the Flies has many themes, symbols, and motifs throughout the novel to acquire this effect. .
Themes are often universal ideas explored in a literary work and Lord of the Flies has its share of themes buried in it. The first theme is a common one used in a variety of works; good vs. evil. In Golding's novel, he uses the "instinct of civilization" to represent good and "the instinct of savagery" to represent evil. This theme is explored throughout the novel and it is the conflict between two competing impulses that exist within all human beings. When all these boys are stranded on the island after the crash, they start out civilized, moral, and discipline; as the novel progresses they move toward the wild, brutal, and barbaric lifestyle. Ralph is used to symbolize order and leadership, or good, and Jack is used to symbolize savagery and the desire for power, or evil. Another theme explored in Lord of the Flies is "the loss of innocence." This is represented symbolically by the forest in which Simon retreats to periodically throughout the novel. When Simon first sits in the forest, it is a place of natural beauty and peace; but when Simon returns to this spot later in the novel, he discovers the head of the boar on a stick.