Lord of the Flies by William G

Lord of the Flies Outline I. The classic novel Lord of The Flies by William Golding is an exciting adventure deep into the nether regions of the mind. The part of out brain that is suppressed by the mundane tasks of modern society. It is a struggle between Ralph and Jack, the boys and the Beast, good and evil. II. Novel Analysis: A. The title refers to Beelzebub, most stinking and depraved of all the devils: it is he, and not the God of the Christians, who is worshipped (Burgess 121). B. -evil is built in him [man], part of his nature; he is led instinctively to worship of Beelzebub (Burgess 121). C. In Lord of the Flies he [Golding] showed how people go to hell when the usual social controls are lifted, on desert islands real of imaginary (Sheed 121). D. ....rational (the firewatchers) pitted against the irrational (the hunters ) in Lord of the Flies (Dick 121). E. The Brilliance of Lord of the Flies can scarcely be exaggerated, and horrific as it is, it cannot be dismissed merely as a horror-comic of high literary merit, as a ‘sick ' comment of R.M. Ballentyne 's nineteenth century views of the nature of British boyhood (Allen 120). III. Authors Life: A. He [Golding] entered the Royal Navy at the age of twenty-nine in December, 1940, and after a period of service on mine sweepers, destroyers, and cruisers, he became a lieutenant in command of his own rocketship (Baker xiii). B He [Golding] has constantly stressed his Hellenic parentage, claiming Homer, Herodotus, Aeschylus, Sophoctes, and Euripides as kinsmen (Dick 120). C. His [Golding 's] first novel, Lord of the Flies finally appeared in 1954 after being rejected by twenty-one publishers; the author was then forty three (Dick 120). D. ....he is a genuinely religious novelist with a vision, based on the concept of original sin, of the horrifying thinness of civilization, of the fragile barriers that lie between man and reversion into barbarism and chaos (Allen 120). IV.

Bibliography: Allen, Walter. "The Modern Novel," Contemporary Literary Criticism Detroit: Gale Research, 1973: 120-121 Baker, James R. William Golding New York St.Martin 's Press, 1965. Sheed, Wilfrid "William Golding: The Pyramid" Contemporary Literary Criticism Detroit: Gale Research, 1973: 121-121