Lord Of The Flies :: essays research papers

The adventure novel, The Lord of the Flies, was an epic tale that depicted the different facets of the human spirit. It was written by William Golding in the 1950’s and recieved many awards. Idt was declared the â€Å"Outstanding Novel of the Year† by E.M. Forrester. The author did in no wat mean for this story to be biographical, but Mr. Golding depicted well the many different aspect of human nature. The book has been described as â€Å"provacative, vivid and enthralling,† but Time and Tide said it best when they wrote, â€Å"It is not only a first-rate adventure story but a parable of our times.† The novel took place on an island probably somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. This can be inferred because of the fact that the boys are British and that they arrived on the island by way of a plane cradsh. The story also occurred during wartime. The story begins when a group of British boys crash on an uninhabited island. In the beginning they area all unruly and unmorginized. Finally, a boy by the nakme of Ralph decides to take charge and call a meeting. The boys declare him â€Å"chief† and then begin to follow his lead. Ralph is also assisted by another lad by the name of Piggy. The group of boys were getting along fine until Jack Merridew, a boy who wanted to be â€Å"chief† instead, decided to go his own way. He disobeyed Ralph and did things his own way. He was to preoccupied witdh his own whims to do the act that was most important on the island, which was to keep the signal going so they could be rescued. Finally, Jack went against Ralph and declared that if any of the other boys wanted to have â€Å"fun,† which meant acting like savages, that they should follow him. The boys splot up into two groups and then havoc insued. Jacks group went around hunting and being barbaric while the others tried to get rescued. In the end Jack had gotten all the boys except Ralph to run around loke wild animals. Then when Jack got tired of dealing with Ralph, he convinced wveryone to try and kill him. By then however, a navy ship had come an they could never get around to the nasty deed. There was more than one antagonist in the story, The Lord of the Flies.