Lord of the Flies: Intelligence and Good vs. Evil

Good versus evil is a common concept used often in storytelling, writing, plays, movies, etc. the basic story line is commonly used and developed to mold different ideals, meanings, and lessons into different types of works. William Golding’s novel the Lord of the Flies falls into this category of works with the good versus evil story line. Boiling the novel down to its most basic state it is a story of a group of boys. They all start out in a state of innocence, then as they adjust to their new surroundings after being stranded on a deserted island with no adults; they chose whether or not they turn from their innocence. When the boys turn from their innocence they go from being good to evil, or as the interpretation of this novel is commonly perceived the boys go from being civilized boys to savages. It is in this sense that civilized and good can be used interchangeably for this interpretation, and the same for evil and savagery. Golding puts an interesting twist to this basic plot right in the beginning of the story. Golding takes the story from just a simple tale of good versus evil to good versus evil with competing ideas of intelligence. Right in the beginning of the novel we see these ideas of intelligence take form. As the story builds the differences in the types of intelligence grows and becomes more distinct. From there the competition of good versus evil begins. After their plane crashes the boys who were on the plane to escape the warfare in England are scattered on the island. Ralph, the first boy we are introduced to meets another boy named Piggy. “It’s a shell! I seen one like that before. On someone’s back wall. A conch he called it. He used to blow it and then his mum would come. It’s ever so valuable-“(15). With Piggy’s help Ralph uses the conch they found to call out to the other boys on the island. This is the first hint at the two types of intelligence. Piggy is already exhibiting signs of natural intelligence. This type of intelligence