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The Lord of the Flies
Is a human instinct for barbarity just below the surface of civilisation?
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies was a favourite book amongst schools when I was growing up. As well as reading the novel, I also went to see the excellent black and white movie of 1963, based on the book (don’t bother with the 90s remake). The novel tells the story of a group of schoolboys marooned on a desert island after their plane crashes, following some kind of nuclear world war. With only the boys as survivors, their early attempts at establishing some kind of civilised democratic order, pending rescue, soon breaks down into savage conflict, warring factions and eventually brutal murder.
Golding’s message is clear. The civilising forces of law and order is a mere veneer, holding society together. Scratch the surface, or remove the veneer, and we revert to a bunch of savages, hellbent on killing each other. His low opinion of humanity was shaped by his experiences in the navy during World War 2. The war revealed to him the fragility of our world and the terrible things that people were capable of doing. He said:
Anyone who moved through those years without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey, must have been blind or wrong…