The Lord of the Flies by William Golding and The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell are two genres that are similar in some ways and certainly different in many other ways. The Lord of the Flies is a true novel while The Most Dangerous Game is a short story. However, their story lines have similar themes.
The Lord of the Flies explores the savagery that lies beneath even the most civilized and to some extent the most innocent human beings. Golding presents the reader with a chronology of events leading a group of young boys through a series of events and interrelationships as they attempt to survive an unsupervised and isolated environment. .
During the nuclear war, a group of British boys found themselves stranded on a deserted island as a result of the Atomic bomb. When it exploded it made their ship crash. They then divided into small groups to form a culture similar to the one they left behind. Ralph was the leader who strives to establish rules for housing and sanitation. He is also in charge of making the signal fire, hoping that a passing ship will see their smoke. Jack, the choir leader, slowly draws Ralph's group away from him. This is due to the natural attraction they have to hunting activities which symbolize evil and violence.
The conflict between Ralph and Jack is expressed by the boys fear of a beast roaming the island. This beast symbolizes man kinds capacity for evil. One night, an aerial battle develops above the island and someone floats down with his parachute landing on the mountaintop. When the wind comes, it inflates the parachute making the body move. The boys panic as they mistake the body for the beast they fear. The boys then form another group lead by Jack. They feel protected by him because of his ferocity.
Simon is the only one who has the courage to discover the true identity of the beast. However, he begins to hallucinate when he sees the dead sow's head which becomes the Lord of the Flies.