An uninhabited island somewhere warm would be a dream vacation for most people. A group of English boys stranded together were thinking the same thing. Trees to climb, water to play in, mountains to hike, and animals to kill; until everything went wrong. A rumor of a monster on the island gives the boys a real situation to test the 1932 quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. William Golding, author of “Lord of the Flies”, sets these boys in 1940’s war time, and successfully uses fear to explore human nature in the way the react and eventually, lose control of the island and themselves.
William Golding grew up in Cornwall, England. His parents were Alec and Mildred Golding. His mother, Mildred was …show more content…
This setting provides an enclosure that contains all the boys and prevents them from leaving or wondering too far, like ones of animals. This forces them together and exhorts the drama by confining the boys so they have to interact. It also acts as an Eden, providing food and shelter for the boys, along with anything else they would need to survive. The boys “accepted the pleasure of morning, the bright sun, the whelming sea and sweet air, as a time when play was good and life so full that hope was not necessary and therefore forgotten” (pg. 6). On the surface all seems well, but farther in the island, on the mountain and in the forests, we can start to see the wonderful home they have been given turn into a nightmare. L.L Dickson says that “this setting is simultaneously sinister and hostile. The boys are scratched by thorns and entrapped by creepers”. Golding turns this beautiful tropic into the scene of a horror like setting, such as when he says, "The ground beneath them was a bank covered with coarse grass, torn everywhere by the upheavals of fallen trees, scattered with decaying coconuts and palm saplings. Behind this was the darkness of the forest proper and the open scar" (p. 6). This “scar” was caused by the landing of the boys plane as it crashed into the island, tearing grass and destroying the life there, like the destruction mankind brings everywhere it wonders. Golding personifies …show more content…
Editor Richard Layman says in American Decades 1950-1959, that “Politics in the 1950s were driven by immediate fears that the American way of life was being threatened by a philosophy that ran counter to, and called for the destruction of, democracy” (pg 184), and this philosophy was communism, that was sweeping the world at the time. Politicians everywhere were using this fear for their benefit. They would make public accusations of people in office being a communist, or “‘Red-Baiting’- became a potent part of campaign strategy in elections taking place at all levels of American government. These fear-tactics used at the time show up almost identically in “The Lord of the Flies”, when Jack and Piggy tell the rest of the group that every boy must stick together as to not get eaten by the
William Golding grew up in Cornwall, England. His parents were Alec and Mildred Golding. His mother, Mildred was …show more content…
This setting provides an enclosure that contains all the boys and prevents them from leaving or wondering too far, like ones of animals. This forces them together and exhorts the drama by confining the boys so they have to interact. It also acts as an Eden, providing food and shelter for the boys, along with anything else they would need to survive. The boys “accepted the pleasure of morning, the bright sun, the whelming sea and sweet air, as a time when play was good and life so full that hope was not necessary and therefore forgotten” (pg. 6). On the surface all seems well, but farther in the island, on the mountain and in the forests, we can start to see the wonderful home they have been given turn into a nightmare. L.L Dickson says that “this setting is simultaneously sinister and hostile. The boys are scratched by thorns and entrapped by creepers”. Golding turns this beautiful tropic into the scene of a horror like setting, such as when he says, "The ground beneath them was a bank covered with coarse grass, torn everywhere by the upheavals of fallen trees, scattered with decaying coconuts and palm saplings. Behind this was the darkness of the forest proper and the open scar" (p. 6). This “scar” was caused by the landing of the boys plane as it crashed into the island, tearing grass and destroying the life there, like the destruction mankind brings everywhere it wonders. Golding personifies …show more content…
Editor Richard Layman says in American Decades 1950-1959, that “Politics in the 1950s were driven by immediate fears that the American way of life was being threatened by a philosophy that ran counter to, and called for the destruction of, democracy” (pg 184), and this philosophy was communism, that was sweeping the world at the time. Politicians everywhere were using this fear for their benefit. They would make public accusations of people in office being a communist, or “‘Red-Baiting’- became a potent part of campaign strategy in elections taking place at all levels of American government. These fear-tactics used at the time show up almost identically in “The Lord of the Flies”, when Jack and Piggy tell the rest of the group that every boy must stick together as to not get eaten by the