Lord of the Flies

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Learn how we rate. For Your Family Log in Sign me up. Is it OK for kids to read books outside their reading levels? Column 4 Our impact report: How Tech Is Changing Childhood. Want personalized picks that fit your family? Set preferences to see our top age-appropriate picks for your kids. Lord of the Flies. Gripping story of marooned schoolboys and their savagery.

William Golding Literary Fiction Sign in or join to save for later. Based on 2 reviews. Based on 31 reviews. Get it now Searching for streaming and purchasing options Common Sense is a nonprofit organization. Your purchase helps us remain independent and ad-free. Get it now on Searching for streaming and purchasing options A lot or a little? The parents' guide to what's in this book. What parents need to know Parents need to know that Lord of the Flies has been described as dark, brutal, pessimistic, and tragic.

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Adult Written by booklover December 18, Great Read Great book and an easy read. I finished the book in four days. There is enduring interest in the themes of this book and traces of it can be seen in such recent works as "The Hunger Games".

William Golding's daughter reveals his 'darker side' in new book

I think I'll be reading it again. Lei Just read it , a stunning book, sad fable pass a strong symbolic message. Hey guys, is this book in first person? If so who's perspective would you be reading in? Thanks in advance, Elle. Gwendolyn Neal The story is told by an omniscient narrator, however, at various points in the story it seems "closer" to certain characters, and tells the story …more The story is told by an omniscient narrator, however, at various points in the story it seems "closer" to certain characters, and tells the story through the lens of different characters' thoughts.

Most often this character is Ralph, but there's a few very important scenes where it's Simon.

Lord of the Flies

See all 77 questions about Lord of the Flies…. Lists with This Book. Jan 31, Silvana rated it it was amazing Shelves: This book is horrifying. I'm scared like hell. I was expecting an adventure book telling about some children who got stranded in an island, but ended up with goosebumps. A bit of synopsis: A number of English school boys suffered from a plane accident causing them to get stranded in an uninhibited island. The period was maybe during the World War II.

Trying to be civilized, they elected a leader for themselves as well started the division of tasks hunters, fire-watchers, etc. Things tur This book is horrifying. Things turned bad when there's a power struggle between the group leaders, worsened by various sightings of a monster in the island.

No, don't think about "Lost" because this is way different. No wonder I had goosebumps at the end, because this book is so true to what happens in the world today. When men tried to govern themselves and started the whole process with goodwill inside , but blinded with egotism and lust for power, tragedy and destruction in society are inevitable.

Human nature is corrupt, it only takes a trivial thing to make its nature controlled by nothing but malice. This book represents a perfect allegory for men. Culture fails repeatedly and no matter how hard we can repress it, nothing will ever stop the drive to become savages.

Despite its length and easy-to-read narration, this is certainly one of the most haunting, powerful books I've ever read. Now I know why this book is listed in so many lists of greatest books in the 20th century. View all 65 comments. Sep 25, Nora rated it did not like it Recommends it for: I read this book a long time ago, long enough to where I barely remembered anything past the basic premise. So I picked it up again, only to wish I hadn't. There's a reason why they teach this book in middle school--in order to enjoy this book, one's intellectual cognizance must be that of a child, because otherwise you'll spend the entire time picking out everything that's wrong with the book.

And there's a lot to pick out. From what little of the story that is actually coherent, I can see why t I read this book a long time ago, long enough to where I barely remembered anything past the basic premise. From what little of the story that is actually coherent, I can see why this book has had a lasting effect on social commentary since it's initial publishing. The overlying illustration of how easily man can devolve back to his feral instincts is striking, yet could have been infinitesimally more effective in the hands of a decent writer.

See, I would have cared a bit more about the little island society of prepubescent boys and their descent into barbarism if you know, any of the characters had been developed AT ALL. Instead, we're thrown interchangeable names of interchangeable boys who are only developed enough to conform to the basic archetypes Golding requires to hobble his little story along: Were he born in this time, I believe Golding would have done brilliantly as a scriptwriter for reality TV. I'm guessing so, since things seem to happen, but it's kind of hard to tell since he spends pages describing irrelevant events that are never incorporated, characters that possibly exist yet probably don't, and using words that don't mean what he thinks they mean.

And as the main characters are a bunch of kids not worth caring about, thus goes the way of the story. Dear God, the prose!

Parents say

So yeah, this book sucked. There were even a few parts I internally squealed at in hopeful anticipation. But whatever potential it did have was hopelessly squandered by a man who wrote like he'd never written anything before in his life. Don't waste your time. View all comments. Dec 05, Emily May rated it really liked it Shelves: I've just finished rereading this book for my book club but, to be honest, I've liked it ever since my class were made to read it in high school.

Overall, Lord of the Flies doesn't seem to be very popular, but I've always liked the almost Hobbesian look at the state of nature and how humanity behaves when left alone without societal rules and structures. Make the characters all angel-faced kids with sadistic sides to their personality and what do you have?

Just your Kids are evil. Just your average high school drama, but set on a desert island. With a bit more bloody murder. But not that much more. In , when this book was published, Britain was in the process of being forced to face some harsh realities that it had blissfully chosen to ignore beforehand - that it is not, in fact, the centre of the universe, and the British Empire was not a thing of national pride, but an embarrassing infringement on the freedom and rights of other human beings. Much of British colonialism had been justified as a self-righteous mission to educate and modernise foreign "savages".

So when put into its historical context, alongside the decolonisation movements, this book could be said to be an interesting deconstruction of white, Western supremacy. This is not a tale of "savages" who were raised in poor, rural villages I can understand why some people interpret this book as racist. And Piggy even asks "Which is better - to be a pack of painted niggers like you are or to be sensible like Ralph is? For me, I always saw it as Golding challenging the notion of savages being dark-skinned, uneducated people from rural areas. With this book, he says screw that, I'll show you savages!

I think that seemed especially clear from the ending when the officer says "I should have thought that a pack of British boys - you're all British, aren't you? Some readers say that you have to have quite a negative view of human nature already to appreciate this book, but I don't think that's true. I'm not sure I necessarily agree with all the implications running around in the novel - namely, the failure of democracy and the pro-authority stance - but it serves as an interesting look at the dark side of human nature and how no one is beyond its reach. Plus, anyone who had a bit of a rough time in high school will probably not find the events in this book a huge leap of the imagination.

The fascinating thing about Lord of the Flies is the way many historical parallels can be drawn from the messages it carries. You could choose to view the charismatic and manipulative Jack Merridew as a kind of Hitler or other dictator who takes advantage of a group of people at their weakest. Dictators and radicals often find it easy to slip in when a society is in chaos Still a fascinating book after all these years.

View all 49 comments. Narges I quit the book in the middle. I don't know why I don't like the books that won the nobel prize. They are not interesting for me so I don't know what I quit the book in the middle. They are not interesting for me so I don't know what to say but if it was good enough for me I would finish it but i didn't. Francesca I almost gave up on this book about halfway through. I'm glad I didn't. You brought forward a lot of ideas and thoughts that I hadn't considered! Than I almost gave up on this book about halfway through.

Lord of the Flies is one of the most disturbing books I've ever read. It was required high school reading and since then, I've read it four more times. It is as disturbing now as it was then. Using a group of innocent schoolboys stranded on an island, the author very realistically portrays human behavior in an environment where civilization no longer has meaning.

View all 30 comments. View all 25 comments. Aug 10, Bookdragon Sean rated it really liked it Shelves: Adults judge the behaviour of children, but are they really any better? The scary thing about this book is how real it is. The Lord of the Flies bespeaks the brilliance of realistic dystopian fiction, it gives you a possible world scenario, a bunch of very human characters and then it shows you want might happen when they are thrown into a terrible situation: What Golding shows us is that we are not so far from our primal nature, from our so called killer instincts, and all it takes is a little push out of the standard world we live in for us to embrace our darker side.

Power creates authority and violence is a way to achieve the peace you want. They go to war amongst themselves and in doing so lose all sense of childhood innocence. They learn what humans are capable of doing when pushed. Like all great literature, it could mean lots of things and nothing at all. It sort of says something to me, a quiet acknowledgement about how messed up things can be given the right circumstances and these children are so very quick to embrace it with unflinching enthusiasm at least, when one of them leads the way.

The dialogue is confusing at times and many of the children fade into the background with only a small few developing distinct personalities. I found the first part of the story particularly difficult to read, so in terms of the actual execution I think it could have been done a little better. I found myself wanting to edit sections of the text, which is not a place a reader should ever be in especially with a novel this revered by so many enthusiastic readers, critics and students.

There are so many pop-culture references to this that a reminder was needed. View all 8 comments. Feb 25, Mk rated it did not like it Recommended to Mk by: I hated this book. First off, as I remember, it talks about humans failure to govern ourselves, or more broadly the failures of human nature. There are a few reasons why I think simply dropping a group of kids on a desert island does not in fact prove anything. The first thing they do is appoint leaders.

As someone who spends my time working in consensus based groups seeking to challenge hierarchical structures, I have a stro I hated this book. As someone who spends my time working in consensus based groups seeking to challenge hierarchical structures, I have a strong belief that this is not how things need to be. It takes a bunch of unlearning and relearning to use these formats - simply being in a new space or being a child does not do this work.

The author and the children he writes about are a part of a specific culture, and it's incorrect to generalize these values to a broader concept of human nature. Again, socialization yes, even of a 6 year old plays a huge role in what behavior we see as appropriate. While it's quite true that men or at least masculinity control government, it's ridiculous to use only boys to extrapolate what ways of governing ourselves are possible.

I read this book in when I was a freshman in highschool, so maybe there's something I missed. Or maybe my memories are being colored by just how gross the pig's head descriptions were. If so, feel free to correct me. For now though, I have to say that this book is offensive and makes dangerous assumption. View all 45 comments.

I mean we have boys between the ages of 6 and 12 who are stranded on an island after they had a plane crash. There is no adult who would force them to stay in line; there is no authority that would tell them what's right or wrong. They are left to their own devices and even though they were doing as good as you would expect schoolboys to do, they still were fairly decent at the beginning of the book.

They were the only ones that tried to get order into the chaos but on an island without any rules only the strongest remain. Why hold on to moral standards? Why listen to reason if you can have a kingdom of your own? You know it better than the others, right?! The strongest will always try to rule the weak. We can only decide if we fight it or let it in. We got to forget this. I want to go home. O god I want to go home. No, it were the monsters that had fallen from the sky, claiming the island as their own, doing as they pleased because they could do so without anyone to stop them.

The monsters on the island came from the outside and despite their claims to want to get off of the island they all knew that they actually wanted to stay. The descent into savageness was inexorable and the book ended on a heavy note. I can only speak for myself but the ending was brilliant. Brilliant and shocking and so very, very realistic that it caused me to ache even more. Anyway if you read the book already you might as well enjoy them now: View all 10 comments.

Jul 31, Lyn rated it really liked it. Years after I read this masterpiece, it is still chilling. Golding spins a yarn that could have been told centuries ago, primal human nature unmoored from civilization does not take long to break away and devolve into a feral thing. As good today, and as haunting, as it was when it was published in This should be on a list of books that must be read.

View all 12 comments. Allyson I still hate it as much as I did in high school. It put me off Golding's work for a very long time. Yet it obviously made an impression and I still re I still hate it as much as I did in high school. Yet it obviously made an impression and I still remember sitting through the film the English teacher made us watch so that we had more understanding of the book - as if I really needed my dislike compounded. It, like Clockwork Orange, should be read as part of the experiment, good and bad, that was the twentieth century.

Lyn Great observation Allyson Dec 15, Aug 22, Andrew rated it really liked it. I was tempted to give this five stars, since in so many ways it strikes me as the kind of masterpiece, like Heart of Darkness, that I imagine will retain its horror and readability for centuries. The prose veers or as Golding would say it, "tends" from plain to painterly. The story is well known: This is what I love about Heart of Darkness: He is excellent at what he does, and what he does is evil.

Kurtz is a true reflection of what excellence was to Colonial Europe, and in so far as Colonial Europe was good, cultivated, honorable, and esteemed, so is Kurtz. Kurtz isn't good or evil; he is true. Golding's version is darker. It centers mostly around the corrupting power of urges to overwhelm social order. Freudian criticism abounds, but the parallel I kept coming back to was Rome. I found that Piggy, no matter how truly annoying he is another brilliant stroke by Golding is to make Piggy strangely unsympathetic , recalled those numerous Republicans of the Early Empire who advocated in a shrill but useless manner for a return to Senate rule but were shunted aside and usually killed by deranged sociopaths who behaved quite like like Jack.

But be it Freudian or historic, any framing of this book feels cheap and hollow because the story has such a complexity of primal urges that it feels almost biological. Golding said he came up with the idea of book after reading his children "Treasure Island or Coral Island or some such Island" in the years of the hydrogen bomb and Stalin and asked his wife, "why don't I write a children's story about how people really are, about how people actually behave?

Its portrait of sadism could have been lifted out of the newspapers; its struggle for dominion over the weak is an almost sexual frenzy recalls everything I know about torture in the dungeons of Argentine or US military prisons. In this respect, I think the book, like Heart of Darkness, is timeless.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The martyrdom of Simon, I felt, demeaned the human quality of Simon. I liked him best because he struck me as the most shrewd and practical. Reducing him to an icon transforms him into a variable: When he comes down to the beach mutting "something about a body on a hill" Simon ceases to be a reflection of human complexity, or biological completeness, and instead becomes a rehashed precedent from Sunday school.

I've often felt that Heart of Darkness' genius was that it somehow reflected the effect of Darwin and modern thinking on the antiquated ideas of Colonial Europe, ie Kurtz isn't good or evil because good and evil are artifices that wilt beneath analysis. When Golding adheres to this materialist perspective, the book is masterly. When he swears allegiance to worn out Christian parables, that complexity is reduced to slips of paper. View all 4 comments. Jun 25, Lisa rated it it was amazing Shelves: That's what went wrong.

There is much to be said against this novel, and it has been said, eloquently, poignantly, many times. Let me make a case for keeping it on the curriculum despite the dated language, the graphic violence, the author's personality There are two myths about adolescents, and this novel does away with them in a - admittedly - drastic way.

First of all, there is no general innocence in a "We did everything adults would do. First of all, there is no general innocence in adolescents. They do what grown-ups do, but in a less mature and experienced way. That means they cheat, lie and steal, and use violence to achieve their goals, and they are vain and interested in dominating and manipulating others. But they are also caring, loving and resourceful, and willing to serve the community in which they participate.

The second myth regards the helplessness and general dependence of adolescents, which is also only true as long as they have grown-ups around. Although it did not have great success after being released—selling fewer than three thousand copies in the United States during before going out of print—it soon went on to become a best-seller. The book takes place in the midst of an unspecified war. With the exception of Sam and Eric and the choirboys, they appear never to have encountered each other before.

The book portrays their descent into savagery; left to themselves on a paradisiacal island, far from modern civilization, the well-educated children regress to a primitive state. Golding wrote his book as a counterpoint to R. Ballantyne 's youth novel The Coral Island , [3] and included specific references to it, such as the rescuing naval officer's description of the children's initial attempts at civilised cooperation as "a jolly good show, like the Coral Island".

In the midst of a wartime evacuation, a British aeroplane crashes on or near an isolated island in a remote region of the Pacific Ocean. The only survivors are boys in their middle childhood or preadolescence. Two boys—the fair-haired Ralph and an overweight, bespectacled boy nicknamed "Piggy"—find a conch , which Ralph uses as a horn to convene all the survivors to one area.

Ralph is optimistic, believing that grown-ups will come to rescue them but Piggy realises the need to organise: Because Ralph appears responsible for bringing all the survivors together, he immediately commands some authority over the other boys and is quickly elected their "chief". He does not receive the votes of the members of a boys' choir, led by the red-headed Jack Merridew, although he allows the choir boys to form a separate clique of hunters. Ralph establishes three primary policies: The boys establish a form of democracy by declaring that whoever holds the conch shall also be able to speak at their formal gatherings and receive the attentive silence of the larger group.

Jack organises his choir into a hunting party responsible for discovering a food source. Ralph, Jack, and a quiet, dreamy boy named Simon soon form a loose triumvirate of leaders with Ralph as the ultimate authority. Upon inspection of the island, the three determine that it has fruit and wild pigs for food. The boys also use Piggy's glasses to create a fire.

Although he is Ralph's only real confidant, Piggy is quickly made into an outcast by his fellow "biguns" older boys and becomes an unwilling source of laughs for the other children while being hated by Jack. Simon, in addition to supervising the project of constructing shelters, feels an instinctive need to protect the "littluns" younger boys. The semblance of order quickly deteriorates as the majority of the boys turn idle; they give little aid in building shelters, spend their time having fun and begin to develop paranoias about the island.

The central paranoia refers to a supposed monster they call the "beast", which they all slowly begin to believe exists on the island. Ralph insists that no such beast exists, but Jack, who has started a power struggle with Ralph, gains a level of control over the group by boldly promising to kill the creature. At one point, Jack summons all of his hunters to hunt down a wild pig, drawing away those assigned to maintain the signal fire.

A ship travels by the island, but without the boys' smoke signal to alert the ship's crew, the vessel continues without stopping. Ralph angrily confronts Jack about his failure to maintain the signal; in frustration Jack assaults Piggy, breaking his glasses. The boys subsequently enjoy their first feast.

Angered by the failure of the boys to attract potential rescuers, Ralph considers relinquishing his position as leader, but is persuaded not to do so by Piggy, who both understands Ralph's importance and deeply fears what will become of him should Jack take total control. One night, an aerial battle occurs near the island while the boys sleep, during which a fighter pilot ejects from his plane and dies in the descent.

His body drifts down to the island in his parachute; both get tangled in a tree near the top of the mountain. Later on, while Jack continues to scheme against Ralph, the twins Sam and Eric, now assigned to the maintenance of the signal fire, see the corpse of the fighter pilot and his parachute in the dark. Mistaking the corpse for the beast, they run to the cluster of shelters that Ralph and Simon have erected to warn the others. This unexpected meeting again raises tensions between Jack and Ralph. Shortly thereafter, Jack decides to lead a party to the other side of the island, where a mountain of stones, later called Castle Rock, forms a place where he claims the beast resides.

Only Ralph and a quiet suspicious boy, Roger, Jack's closest supporter, agree to go; Ralph turns back shortly before the other two boys but eventually all three see the parachutist, whose head rises via the wind. They then flee, now believing the beast is truly real. When they arrive at the shelters, Jack calls an assembly and tries to turn the others against Ralph, asking them to remove Ralph from his position.

Receiving no support, Jack storms off alone to form his own tribe. Roger immediately sneaks off to join Jack, and slowly an increasing number of older boys abandon Ralph to join Jack's tribe. Jack's tribe continues to lure recruits from the main group by promising feasts of cooked pig. The members begin to paint their faces and enact bizarre rites, including sacrifices to the beast. One night, Ralph and Piggy decide to go to one of Jack's feasts. Simon, who faints frequently and is probably an epileptic , [6] [7] has a secret hideaway where he goes to be alone.

One day while he is there, Jack and his followers erect an offering to the beast nearby: Simon conducts an imaginary dialogue with the head, which he dubs the " Lord of the Flies ".

The head mocks Simon's notion that the beast is a real entity, "something you could hunt and kill", and reveals the truth:

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