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Last Island · #1 Wednesday, June 06, 2007

“I am treated as a theologian, philosopher, psychologist but what I really am at the bottom is a story-teller. If you
can say, ‘once upon a time’, convincingly enough to anybody you’ve have got them.” (Interviewed in India, 1897)

Certain critics have tried to read “Lord of the Flies” as a moral fable and others as an allegory. But the general opinion is in the favor of calling it a fable. A fable is a simple story having a moral lesson. And an allegory is a story which has layers of meaning and is interpreted on more than one level. But, as a matter of fact, the novel is not exactly fit for either. This means Golding is neither a fabulist nor an allegory writer. “Lord of the Flies” is a simple, straightforward narrative story. It has all the characteristics that a story should have. It has continuous narration of well-knit plot with dramatic elements, proper beginning, middle and an end. It also have element of suspense and horror, a good characterization, development of character, universal of situation contrast between appearance and reality, use of natural scenery and symbolism and the story also carries a moral lesson.

In “Lord of the Flies”, Golding tries to show that the order and discipline is unnatural to man. It is just enforced upon the man. And the instinct of dominance is the root cause of the entire disturbance. Golding seems to believe that good has been replaced by the sinister forces of evil. Devil has taken the place of God. And the new god of modern world is “power”.

Golding does not see man as rational being but an instinctive being. To him, instinct is more powerful then rationality. He believe Darwin’s view of, “The survival of the fittest” and in “Lord of the Flies”, only the fittest survives as Jack proves himself more powerful and fittest than Ralph and in the end of the novel a “naval officer” loaded with guns and arms proves himself better than Jack. Golding believes that man can’t get rid of his basic instinct of savagery. We see the boys turning from human being to animal and then from animal to cannibals.

Actually, Golding is telling the story of civilization. He is conservative and looks backward. He is not a progressive writer but a regressive one. He discusses his hypothesis how civilization developed. It is an inverted Utopia that is called distopia. This is Golding’s idealism that a man is at heart a savage and the heart is full of darkness.

We see the paradise-like island into a hell. Death of Simon is the death of virtuousness, death of Piggy and the breakage of his glasses is the death of intellect, the breakage of conch is the end of civilization and on the other hand painted faces and mock hunting is the symbol of evil and grief.