Lord of the Flies summary

There are some things that we often take for granted. We wake up, go to work, and live our lives as well as we can. But take a step back, and think about what makes all this possible. What keeps the cogs of society clicking along? It all comes down to an implicit agreement that everyone – for the most part – will follow the fundamental rules of society.

But what happens when these rules break down? What are the innate aspects of our human nature that these laws are protecting – or protecting us from?

These are some of the questions that William Golding explores in his famous allegorical novel Lord of the Flies. Written in the early 50s – in the wake of the horrors of World War II and under the growing fears of the cold war and nuclear annihilation – thoughts of the fragility of civilization and the nature of man were at the forefront of Golding’s mind.

By presenting the story through the eyes of young boys stranded on a deserted island, Golding was able to create an allegory for our society, exploring just how ingrained are the darker sides of humanity.

This Blink will look at some of the most powerful themes presented in Lord of the Flies – themes that are as relevant today as they were in 1954: The struggle between civilization and savagery; the loss of innocence and moral decay; the dangers of mob mentality; and how this all relates to the very nature of humanity.

By the way: if you would like to listen to a very short summary right away, you can also skip to the very last section.

Meet Simon. A bright-eyed boy with a scraggly mop of black hair, Simon seems different from the others: He is shy and secretive, and likes to spend time alone.

One day, after some time on the island, Simon finds himself wandering through the forest, helping the younger kids with the fruit they can’t reach. He leaves them to follow an overgrown path deeper into the jungle, finally emerging into a beautiful sunlit glade. In this secluded clearing, with its hanging vines and low, dark ferns, Simon simply sits – listening to the sounds of the island: The birds and the insects, the distant crash of the sea.

Much later in the book, Simon finds himself back in this glade. This time, however, the scene is far from beautiful, and his experience is far from meditative. Jack and his now-bloodthirsty crew have slaughtered a pig, and stuck its severed head on a stick, erected in the middle of Simon’s special clearing.

In an epileptic and dehydrated hallucination, Simon has a conversation with the horrible pig’s head – referred to as the “Lord of the Flies” for the black swarm that surrounds it. During the gruesome conversation, the Lord of the Flies declares itself as the beast that is inside all of us and tells Simon that he is not welcome on the island. In his delusion, the pig’s mouth grows to consume him, and Simon loses consciousness. 

Though upon waking up, the pig’s head is silent. Lucid once again, he returns to the group.

Here he finds the other boys caught up in their fear of the beast. A dead soldier, parachuting from a crashing plane, has become caught in some rocks. The billowing parachute and gruesome corpse make a convincing beast.

Simon, in an act of innocent bravery climbs up to the soldier, to prove that it isn’t the beast which everyone fears. However, when he returns to tell the boys of the news, in their fear and paranoia, they think Simon is the beast, and fall upon him, killing him with their bare hands.

And that’s the unfortunate fate of Simon.

ANALYSIS

To understand one of the key themes in Lord of the Flies, it’s important to understand the character of Simon and what he represents. As you learned in the previous section, Ralph stands for civilization and Jack stands for savagery. So, where does Simon fit in?

When we see Simon, his behavior is always simple and honest. He is in touch with nature, he helps the younger children get fruit, and he is happy to go off by himself. Simon represents a pure, spiritual goodness.

And that is why he has to die. His character arc represents loss of innocence, one of the most powerful themes in the story. This is shown in the simple contrast between his special glade – beautiful and serene at the beginning, menacing and defiled by a severed pig's head by the end.

In a sense, Simon is too good for the world of Lord of the Flies. As the other boys go from playful youths, to savage murderers, the good and pure Simon has no place. When he is brutally murdered by the savages, for simply being brave enough to inspect the alleged monster, it suggests that the corruption and loss of innocence is inevitable.

And what of the pig’s head – the titular Lord of the Flies – that Simon sees? This is the representation of evil. Call it the devil if you like. While the interaction is a trick of Simon’s fevered imagination, the declaration that the beast is part of all of us is a very real statement about the innateness of evil in our lives.

So, when we lose our innocence, is this us being exposed to the evil of the world, or the evil inside us that was always there? Just ask Simon.

“Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.”

This is what Jack and his fellow hunters chant after their first kill. They march and shout as one, carrying the carcass up to the fire site, talking over each other, caught up in the thrill of the hunt.

“We hit the pig,” says one. “I fell on top,” says another. “I cut the pig’s throat,” says Jack with pride. They don’t care that their obsession with the hunt caused the signal fire to go out. They’re just happy with how they worked together, and won their prize.

“Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!” they chant again, later in the book. This time it follows another hunt, but in their frenzy they turn on Robert, one of their own members. They form a circle around him, and jab him with spears as he screams and struggles. One of the boys – Ralph – is particularly unsettled by his own behavior. They eventually stop, laughing it off as a game – though Robert doesn’t seem to think so.

“Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood.” This time poor Simon is the target of the ritualistic chant. The fear of seeing a figure emerge from where the beast supposedly is drives the crowd to a terrified frenzy. Before Simon is able to explain who he is and what he has seen, he is brutally murdered by the teeth and nails of the mob.

“Kill the beast!” The final time we hear this chant, the tribe of hunters are dancing around a fire, some time after killing Piggy. Their faces painted, they are united in their fear of the beast and the horrible actions they have taken.

Finally, they turn on Ralph, the one boy on the island who is still alive and hasn’t joined their mob. His salvation is pure luck: The Naval officer arrives, saving him from near certain death at the hands of Jack and the blood-thirsty crowd.

ANALYSIS.

What we’re seeing in these hunters is a typical example of mob mentality, and the horrible things that people are capable of when they lose themselves to the power of the larger group and the impulses of their fear.

It starts out innocently enough: Hunting the pig in order to provide food for the group. But already the individuals in the group are starting to lose their identity, talking over each other and finishing each other's thoughts as they describe the hunt in graphic detail.

Soon fear becomes the justification for violence. It is not the pig that they are killing, but the terrifying beast.

It is through violence and fear that the mob becomes more unified, and it is through this unification that the violence increases. Soon they are caught up in frenzied attacks of their own members, and murders of those who won’t conform. By the end they are dancing – as one – with their faces and identities masked by paint. The individual is gone – consumed by the larger mob.

And don’t forget to look at who becomes the victims of this mob – Simon, with his spiritual goodness, Piggy, with his voice of reason, and finally Ralph, with his embodiment of civilization. These ideals are not only resistant to mob mentality – they are attacked or killed by it.

The story is about the boys on the island, and their own personal struggles. But there is a much bigger struggle in the background, of which we are only shown glimpses.

At the very start, the boys crash-land on the island, after being evacuated. Piggy talks about a man with a megaphone, and soldiers who may or may not save them. “Didn’t you hear what the pilot said? About the atom bomb? They’re all dead.” Without providing the details, it's clear that they are fleeing a nuclear war of a grand scale.

Later, they discover a corpse of a parachutist, who unsuccessfully ejected from a plane that had been shot down. While the boys mistake this for the fabled beast, the reality isn't that much less frightening – a bloody and broken body, caught amongst some rocks, animated by the wind.

Finally, as Ralph runs desperately from Jack and his murderous followers, he is ultimately saved by the Naval officer. The officer is initially shocked by the boys' appearance and barbarous behavior, eventually dismissing them as just children. “Fun and games,” he says, before mentioning that a group of British boys should have “put up a better show.”

Overall, every glimpse or reference of the adult world concerns war, violence, or dismissive arrogance.

ANALYSIS.

So why would Golding choose the backdrop of an unnamed war to tell his story? Surely the events would have played out the same, no matter how the boys ended up on the island.

This relates largely to the context in which Golding was writing, and the themes he was trying to explore. The early 50s were an interesting time – the world had just survived the horrors of World War II, and everyone was well aware of the evils humans are capable of. At the same time, the cold war was a constant and real threat, with the possibility of nuclear destruction at the forefront of everyone's mind.

It’s no stretch to see why Golding was inspired to write a story about the fragility of civilization and the inevitable moral decay of man.

You see, this story is not just about boys on an island trying to survive. The adults out in the world are the same as those kids, prone to the same inner evils and savagery. These boys will grow up to be the next adults, if the world still exists for them.

As their society collapses, Piggy and Ralph speculate on how the grown-ups would be able to handle things. “Grown ups know things… they wouldn’t quarrel, or talk about a beast.” If only that were true.

When the final Naval officer dismisses the behavior of the children as unbecoming of British boys, it is both ironic and sad. The implication is that the savagery and violence that the boys demonstrated is the same as the soldiers fighting and dropping bombs over other countries.

As Golding himself once said of his book: In the end, the adults save the children. But who will save the adults?

So, what can you do with this bleak conclusion? Savagery wins out over civilization, we are destined to lose our innocence, and the evil in man will always triumph?

Just like Ralph, who resisted until the end, this isn't a reason to give up. It's a reason to keep trying.

The story takes place on an unnamed island in the Pacific ocean, where a group of young British boys crashland after being evacuated from nuclear war. As he stumbles from the wreckage, twelve-year-old Ralph meets a fat, asthmatic boy called Piggy. Together they find a conch shell, which Ralph blows to summon the other survivors: The ambitious Jack and his friends, the epileptic Simon, and a group of younger children.

Using the conch to decide who can speak, they initially create a democratic society with Ralph as the leader. The children become afraid, believing that there is a beast on the island. Ralph tries to explain that there is no beast, while Jack declares that he will hunt it down and kill it. This disagreement eventually splits the boys into two competing factions, led by Ralph and Jack, respectively.

As Jack's group becomes more violent and barbaric, they end up killing Simon and Piggy, and setting fire to the island. Ralph runs from Jack and his crew, only to be saved by a passing Naval officer who saw the fire. The book ends with the officer saying how disappointed he is by the behavior of the boys.