William Goldings novel, Lord of the Flies, may be set on a remote island sparsely

populated with young boys who have become stranded and who are trying desperately yet
ineffectively to establish and maintain order; however, the lessons that Lord of the Flies holds
for the reader about the purpose and peril of government remain relevant as metaphors of
modern politics. The nave, inexperienced boys who have unexpectedly found themselves
dropped into a place where there are no adults, no social institutions, and no order try to mimic
the social organization that they think would reflect the adult world faithfully. One of the most
important themes in Lord of the Flies is government and its creation and shape. It is created
out of necessity: they identify a leader, select symbols that give their society-building enterprise
significance, establish rules and norms, and make attempts to fulfill their basic human needs
while maintaining workable relationships with one another. Although all of these activities
mirror the society from which they have become alienateda society, which it is worth noting,
is experiencing its own collapse due to warthe boys are ultimately unsuccessful in maintaining
a workable and livable microcosm. What Golding seems to be saying about government in Lord
of the Flies is that its institutions and norms will only have meaning and will only be effective if
the people who make them and the citizens who agree to them are truly concerned about the
greater good and if they understand why these elements of society were established and how they
function.
When the boys wreck and find themselves stuck on an island, they are shocked to
discover that there are no adults anywhere, and no immediate possibility of rescue is evident.
They decide to impose order amongst themselves in a setting that is clearly without order. In
terms of the theme of society and government in Lord of the Flies the boys believe that if each
can be assigned and fulfill a particular role, they will survive on the island until someone
happens upon them or until their parents come to look for them. The characters in Lord of the
Flies efforts are well-intentioned, especially because they do have enough insight to recognize
that they will simply not live unless they cooperate with one another and share responsibility for
tasks of daily living, such as providing for the basic needs of shelter and food. The boys elect a
leader, Ralph, who has already shown his creativity by blowing into a conch shell and calling the
boys together. Although it is true that Ralph does show particular promise at this point, the boys
fail to evaluate whether Ralph possesses the leadership qualities that will be necessary to
function effectively in his role for an indeterminate period of time. They make their decision to
elect him as their leader based on a single act.They obeyed the summons of the conch, the
narrator says in one of the important quotes from Lord of the Flies by William Golding, partly
because Ralph blew it, and he was big enough to be a link with the adult world of authority.
(50). What Ralph represents symbolically is more meaningful to the boys at this point than his
actual skills. Over time, they will come to regret this decision. Only in retrospect will they have a
better understanding of what a leader is and what kinds of qualities he should possess.
Each of the other boys has a role to play in the construction of a utopian government in Lord of
the Flies. A boy named Jack is appointed to all tasks related to food gathering, while the rest of
the boys are expected to play citizen roles and in the division of labor. Each is to participate in
building the infrastructure of the society, however temporary they expect it to be, and to support
the activities that will promote their survival. One of the failures of the boys system, though, is
that the leaders fail to evaluate the abilities of the citizens and make resources available to them
which will help them fulfill the roles expected of them. The youngest boys, referred to as
littleuns, do little to support the concrete work of society building; instead, they busy

themselves with play, aimless and trivial (Golding 49). The shortcoming of this political
system becomes evident almost immediately. The boys who have been told to keep a signal fire
burning get distracted and the fire goes out of control. The fire is a loss in more way than one.
The raging fire kills one of the boys, but when it finally burns out, the boys have lost an
important symbolic and practical resource. This event creates conflict and divisiveness among
the boys, starting their slow descent into social chaos. What makes the situation painful for the
reader is that all of the negative consequences of the fire were avoidable. What Golding seems to
be saying with this episode is that mistakes or oversights which are preventable in governments
are common, but that these seemingly insignificant episodes tend to mark a tipping point.
Inattentiveness to small issues will escalate matters until they become unmanageable and the
consequences much more dire.
The fire marks a turning point for another reason. Some of the boys are so disappointed
by the fire keepers oversight that they begin to split into competing groups; in doing so, they
lose sight of the need to maintain a commitment to the good of the entire group, rather than the
petty needs or interests of individuals. The already loose social order begins to unravel; boys
who were assigned to certain tasks failed to fulfill them and began to pursue their own interest.
The competing groups become suspicious of one another and thus begin to act in ways that do
not foster the strength and survival of the community. The boys begin to become petty with one
another, and act out in violent ways. It is at this point that the more mature boys recognize that
The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away (Golding 79). It is not
only the survival of the social system, the loose optimistic form of government that the boys
have established that is in question, but the very survival of the boys themselves. Golding is
pointing out that the structure of government has the power to protect and sustain when each
individual in the society plays the role that has been assigned to him; however, when the
responsibility is avoided, the government cannot rescue them.
The boys recognize that their government, their society in Lord of the Flies, is falling
apart, but their recognition of this fact does not help them determine how they can restore order.
Some of the boys attempt to do so by insisting upon adherence to a strict code of conduct. [T]he
rules are the only thing we got! (Golding 79), one says in an impassioned speech. He appeals to
any remaining attachments and memories that the boys might have of the adult world by asking,
What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? Whats grown-ups going to think? (Golding
79). The boys are not convinced by the speech, however. They continue to pursue their own
individual or small group interests and their society loosens its grasp on any semblance of
normality and functionality. The boys do indeed become savages, inconsiderate of each other and
more so, inconsiderate of the idea of the society building enterprise, the central work of which
involves establishing a functional government.
In Lord of the Flies, novelist William Golding is not government-bashing. In fact, he
seems to genuinely believe in the power and potential of a thoughtfully organized and executed
government, especially one that is democratic in its ideology and structure. The situation that he
establishes in Lord of the Flies demonstrates that the power and potential of government about
which Golding is so confident is incredibly vulnerable to threats. Such threats are not limited to
external enemies; indeed, the most significant threats may come from within the government
itself. In Lord of the Flies, the boys enthusiastically pursue the project of developing a
government that will help them establish and maintain social norms and expectations, and which
will provide for their basic needs. However, the project is doomed for the outset. They choose a

leader based on a single criterion rather than a thorough evaluation of his capacities. They assign
roles without assessing citizens abilities and resources. They have no checks and balances to
compensate for social unrest. For all of these reasons, the boys society-building project fails.
One can read Lord of the Flies as a cautionary tale. While the novel is about children with
limited insight striving to establish a society, the same challenges and threats they confront are
common today.