William Golding Impact On Lord Of The Flies

In 1954 William Golding wrote his first published book “Lord Of The Flies.” The book became popular almost overnight as well as creating controversy in the psychological community. Golding used experiences from his life to write the book. Both from his childhood and time in the war. Golding was born September 19, 1911 in the rural area of Cornwall England. During a time where there wasn't much to do. Where radio was non-existent and gramophones were few and far between. Reading and watching his father paint filled his free time. His father had access to the local school’s library. But golding had already mostly read most of the books inside. His favourite being “Nat the Naturalist” By George Manville Fenn. Eventually Golding had to leave
his home where he had mostly learned what he could pick up, in to, as his brother J. T. C. Golding put it: “A world of violence and small boys-and not so small boys” at Marlborough Grammar School. There he would see what boys would do to each other. He saw smaller boys group up to take out weak targets. This would become a theme for his book. Altho it is only slightly mentioned in the story a lot of the background has to do with war.
William Golding (then training to be a teacher) left his country to serve in the British Royal Navy. The war had a big effect on him. As here Golding himself explains; "The war produced one notable effect on me. It scared me stiff. It was the turning point for me. I began to see what people were capable of doing. Where did the Second World War come from? Was it made by something inhuman and alien - or was it made by chaps with eyes and legs and hearts?" (Dangar). Golding saw not only what happened to his men in combat but what Germans had done to their own people. When he returned home golding went straight back to writing. He would come out with his first publication “Lord of The Flies”. With his experience as a boy, and in war driving the main idea. Little did golding know that it would become famous overnight and eventually became a cult classic. And with that came controversy, and outside
critique. When “Lord of The Flies” came out it received both rave reviews and intense critique from the psychological community.
As described here by E. L. Epstein “In this book, as in few others at the present time, are findings of psychoanalysis of all schools, anthropologists, social psychologists and philosophical historians mobilized into an attack upon the central problem of modern thought: the nature of the human personality and the reflection of personality on society.” Most people argued the principles laid out by John Locke and Sigmund Freud. In which man is born good and is made evil by outside forces. In “Lord of the flies” the boys have nothing to corrupt them yet they still become savages. More in line with what was laid out by Thomas Hobbes, that men are created evil and can only become good when trained to. Golding’s boys followed this by slowly losing their civility until most of them become savages. This stirred up a lot of debate, for there was a similar text called “The Coral
Island”. In R. M. Ballantyne’s “The Coral Island” three boys get shipwrecked on an island. On their island are all the things they need to survive. They decide to stay civil, and live as “Good english boys.” This is a direct contrast to the boys in “Lord of The Flies” turning into savages. It is important to note that even golding himself drew examples from “The Coral Island” in his own work. At the end of the book the ship captain, after finding the boys in there mostly savage state, said “I know. Jolly good show. Like the coral island.”(Golding, 186) after the boys said they were civil at first. This shows that Golding knew of the books contrast. The main difference between the two points of thought is well described by Carl Niemeyer: “Ballantyne's story raises the problem of evil, but whereas Golding finds evil in the boys' own natures, it comes to Ballantyne's boys not from within themselves but from the outside world.” This shows the argument Freud, Ballantyne, and John Locke Verses Golding and Thomas Hobbes. Are men born evil? Are they changed by the outside world? Can they be controlled? These are the questions people asked themselves after reading Golding’s book. It became a source of argument in the psychological community. One that even Golding joined in from time to time. A few examples of arguments; (E. L. Epstein) “Indeed one could, if one were so minded, go through the entire canon of modern literature, philosophy and psychology and find this great basic drive defined as underlying the most fundamental conclusions of modem thought.”(Epstein) This was showing Epstein’s support of Golding’s work. And even as I said Mr. Golding himself joined in from time to time. Like here as Golding is comparing the other side’s argument to the boys on the island while in an interview with James Keating at Purdue University (May 10th 1962); “Yes. I think, quite simply, that they don't understand what beasts there are in the human psyche which have to be curbed.” (Keating). Then when talking to Keating, Golding answers one of the biggest questions asked by critiques “What about adults, how come we are able to remain civil?” Golding replies to this, ”.....in an adult society it is possible society will not break down. It may be that we can put sufficient curbs on our own nature's to prevent it from breaking down.” (Keating) There are many questions to be asked when reading Golding’s book. Most of them have been answered now, but, for the time the debate was raging. Making it one of the most influential novels to get the psychology community talking. It was like a kid raising his hand, all the people who had unpopular opinions came out with them behind Golding.