A review of a book as iconic as Lord Of The Flies should surely only offer comment, not mere description. It is over 50 years since its publication in 1954 and, it should be remembered, the story is set in wartime. So, while the marooned boys apparently descend into a mould of pre-civilised behaviour, their adult compatriots are engaged in it full time in the world outside. Jack may paint his face and display an identifying insignia, but so, probably, does his father at that time, a display he might call a uniform, and the insignia a flag or regimental banner. It is perhaps coincidence that William Golding casts a casualty of the nearby war, dead, but re-animated by natural elements, the wind in his parachute, as the intruding beast that terrorises the stranded boys.
Where this imagery falls down, of course, is at the end, when a suitably British naval officer rescues the lads. We assume they will promptly be returned to their besieged wartime homeland, no doubt to live happily ever after. Of course, there is the question of who saves the adults, whose war is merely the same as the boys’ limited creation on their island. But this element of the book perhaps reads less convincingly 50 years on from its publication, when the general reader would have needed no reminder of how horrid an experience the recent war had been.
Ralph’s character poses something of a dilemma. He clearly believes he was born to lead. When he finds his authority both undermined and then by-passed, it appears he cannot cope with the demotion, his continued assumption of status blinding him to the obvious. At the time this surely would have been interpreted as a reference to the British class system. Fifty years on, the allusion is less than obvious.
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