Lord of the Flies:
A Review of a Questionable Classic
Lord of the Flies is William Golding’s 1954 novel about a group of boys stranded on a deserted island after their plane is shot down during a war. With no adults and no rules, they attempt to govern themselves and fail, violently. It is frequently taught in middle and high schools as a meditation on human nature and what happens when society’s constraints are stripped away. I first read it in middle school and am now finally able to pen my thoughts.
Ralph
Ralph is technically the protagonist as he’s elected leader and holder of the conch. Now, that’s in theory. In practice, he’s just kind of there. You never really get inside his head in any meaningful way. He reacts and he panics. But who is he beyond that? The book never really bothers to answer that, and after a while, you stop asking and caring.
Jack
Jack is the villain, the chaos to Ralph’s order. And like Ralph, he feels more like a symbol than a person. His descent into savagery is meant to be the terrifying heart of the novel, but it happens so fast and so neatly that it’s hard to find it convincing. He goes from choirboy to feral hunter, instantly, making his character feel like Golding moving a piece across a board to hit a certain plot point.
Simon
My favorite, and honestly, the only character who feels like an actual person. He’s quiet and perceptive in a way the other boys aren’t, and he seems to understand what’s really happening on the island. His fate (no direct spoilers) is the most upsetting moment in the book because he’s the only one who deserved better.
Piggy
Piggy is (and I feel a little bad about this) fine. He’s the voice of logic, the one waving the conch around, asking everyone to please act like human beings. I don’t have strong feelings about him either way. He’s there. He does his thing.
My Honest Review
I’ll say this upfront: I read this book before hearing anything about the ‘claims’ against William Golding–though you can hardly call them claims if he admitted to them. My issues with Lord of the Flies are entirely about the piece itself and not Golding. But knowing what I know now does explain a lot and I think that’s worth saying once before moving on.
So. Lord of the Flies. A classic, apparently. Required reading in schools across the country. I’ve been trying to figure out why, and I’m still not sure I have an answer.
The book’s argument is basically this: civilization is a thin veneer, and underneath it, people (or at least middle school boys) are violent and irredeemable. Golding isn’t suggesting this as a possibility. He’s stating it as a fact, and the whole novel exists to prove him right. That’s the main issue: there’s no tension when the ending feels decided before the first page. The boys were always going to turn on each other. You can feel Golding nudging them there the whole time.
I’m also just not convinced by the premise. Maybe I’m naive, but I don’t believe a group of kids stranded on an island would descend into murder and ritual this quickly. It feels less like an honest look at human nature and more like a really cynical one–written by someone who had already made up his mind about people.
The writing doesn’t do much to redeem it either. It’s flat and functional, and occasionally veers into something genuinely strange and unpleasant. And can we talk about the fact that this is assigned to middle schoolers? I first read it at that age, and coming back to it now (the gore and the general bleakness of it) I don’t get it. To Kill a Mockingbird is hard too, but it has something real and humane at its center. This just has boys killing each other while Golding nods along.
I get that it has defenders. I get that a good teacher can use it to spark real conversations about bullying and power. But a book that needs great teaching to justify its existence is doing a lot of outsourcing. One star, for Simon, who deserved a better book.
Happy reading, and if you find out why Lord of the Flies is a classic, let me know.