The Lord of the Flies
by William Golding
William Golding was born in Cornwall, England, in 1911. As a child and adolescent, Golding, like others in the innocent years before the War, had a fundamentally simple conception of the world. In a generic mode of thinking, during the years before the massive cruelty, devastation, and destruction wrought by World War II, the prevailing concept of man and society included two basic viewpoints: man was essentially good and society was inherently evil. Golding’s belief in this concept can be seen in his childhood reading choices, which included adventure stories like Tarzan of the Apes, Coral Island, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea. These stories featured good and pure men in their struggle against the evils of society. He later attended Oxford University, where he changed his major from Science to English Literature.
Golding’s opinions toward mankind and society changed with the course of the war. He fought during World War II as a member of the Royal Navy. His experience included clashes with enemy naval vessels as well as participation in the Walcheren and D-Day operations. He witnessed firsthand the terrible destructive power of man operating during war, essentially outside the restrictive limits of society. With war as his tutor, he began to view man, instead, as a creature with a very dark and evil side to his nature.
His writings include the novels Lord of the Flies (1954), The Inheritors (1955), Pincher Martin (1956), Free Fall (1959), The Spire (1964), Darkness Visible (1979), Rites of Passage (1981), Close Quarters (1987), Fire Down Below (1989), the play “The Brass Butterfly” (1958), a book of verse called Poems (1934), and two essay collections: The Hot Gates (1965) and A Moving Target (1982). Lord of the Flies, as well as his other works, essentially explores the dark side of what Golding felt was the true nature of man: evil.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983 for his body of work, and was knighted in 1988. William Golding died on June 28, 1993.
(Summary from www.enotes.com)
Golding’s opinions toward mankind and society changed with the course of the war. He fought during World War II as a member of the Royal Navy. His experience included clashes with enemy naval vessels as well as participation in the Walcheren and D-Day operations. He witnessed firsthand the terrible destructive power of man operating during war, essentially outside the restrictive limits of society. With war as his tutor, he began to view man, instead, as a creature with a very dark and evil side to his nature.
His writings include the novels Lord of the Flies (1954), The Inheritors (1955), Pincher Martin (1956), Free Fall (1959), The Spire (1964), Darkness Visible (1979), Rites of Passage (1981), Close Quarters (1987), Fire Down Below (1989), the play “The Brass Butterfly” (1958), a book of verse called Poems (1934), and two essay collections: The Hot Gates (1965) and A Moving Target (1982). Lord of the Flies, as well as his other works, essentially explores the dark side of what Golding felt was the true nature of man: evil.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983 for his body of work, and was knighted in 1988. William Golding died on June 28, 1993.
(Summary from www.enotes.com)
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