"It's No Go"

By relating the symbolic adventure of a group of children on an isolated island, William Golding's masterpiece Lord of the Flies explores the darkness of human heart. Many scholars at home and abroad have devoted themselves to the interpretation of this fiction; the focus of their study ranges from its source, its genre, and its archetypes to its profound theme. This thesis intends to conduct a thematic survey, revealing the evil of human nature as embodied in the characterization and the symbolic images of the novel.Whether man is good or evil by nature is a constant topic to philosophers and writers. Roughly speaking, the exploration of human nature in the West undergoes five stages, and the essential views of each stage differ.William Golding stands with those who view humanity as dark. Three major elements contribute to the formation of Golding's outlook on man: the experience with the disastrous World War II, the reading of Greek tragedies, and the acceptance of"Original Sin"advocated by Christianity.In Lord of the Flies, the children's efforts to reconstruct civilization on the deserted island prove to be a failure. Instead of resuming order and law, they turn the island into a hell. The boys trapped on the island are roughly divided into two parties: the civilized group (Ralph and his wise man Piggy) and the choir-turned savage tribe (Jack and his gang). Ralph and Piggy insist on setting up orders and democracy, but Jack and his tribe men are satisfied at finding the convenient outlet for their suppressed savageness. Jack is the displacement of Dionysus while Ralph and Piggy are the displacements of Apollo. The two forces are fighting against each other from the beginning to the end. Unfortunately, it is the savage tribe that eventually wins the battle.The novel is permeated with symbolic images, such as the circle, Piggy's glasses and the rock. The structure of the story is equally symbolic. In the beginning, the assembly that stands for order and civilization controls the situation; but the mountain which suggests fears and devastation gradually replaces the assembly to dominate the island and hence results in disaster. The preys of the nine hunts are changing from piglet to sow to boar and finally to man. All these symbolic images and structure of the novel help uncover the boys'degeneration.Golding firmly holds that, without the control of the civilization, the beast within man will drive him to revert to savageness. Golding is consistently preoccupied with this topic, which constitutes the theme of all his novels.