THEMES

Good and Evil

The battle between good and evil is a central theme of LOTF. It appears in many conflicts
(e.g.) between the conch group and the savages, between the boys and the terrifying ‘beast’
and between rescue from a passing ship and imprisonment on the increasingly insane
island.

Early in the novel, good is in the ascendancy. The conch provides a symbol of the decency
and order of the society that they boys have come from. Ralph organises the construction of
shelters and a fire to signal to ships with. The boys spent the majority of their time playing
and there are a few accidents (e.g.) the fire that kills the birthmarked boy, but with Ralph’s
benign government, good is always dominant.

This situation is threatened as Jack continues his attempts to take over the conch group he
fails in this – a small victory for good – and sulks off to form his own ‘tribe’. From then on,
evil takes control. Boys join Jack’s tribe because he hunts pigs and doesn’t make them work.
Ralph, representing forces of good, is paralysed by indecision and has no effective
response. Jack’s tribe grows and his malevolence with it. Piggy’s glasses are violently
stolen, leaving him sightless. When the remainder of the conch group goes to retrieve the
spectacles, Sam and Eric are captured and Piggy slain. Only the naval officer’s intervention
prevent the complete triumph of evil over good

Golding is giving us a warning about the power of evil, that if the good in people are not
fostered the evil will take place. The human urge to destroy will be unleashed and in the
modern age there seem t be no limits to the harm this can do.

Law and Order

The boys have come from a society in which orderliness is the norm and they attempt to
continue this when they first arrive on the island

The conch comes to symbolise values of this previous existence. They boys cannot talk at
meetings unless they are holding the conch, and are thus forced to treat whoever is
speaking with respect. This means that piggy – in many ways a natural victim – is able to air
intelligent thoughts that lead to improvements in the boys’ lives.

The other symbol associated with Piggy, his glasses, exposes a different side of law and
order on the island. His glasses were used to start the fires that are essential both to rescue
and hygienically – cooked food. Jack – at school a figure of authority and order as head of
the choir – refuses to respect Piggy’s right to the glasses, first punching him and breaking a
lens, then stealing the pair to start fires. In doing so, he challenges the law and order that
have kept life on the island reasonable under Ralph. When the boys no longer accept law
and order after this, Ralph is powerless and darker, more evil forces take over.

Discipline
The island is like a laboratory in which Golding can analyse the tensions that exist within a
school. By removing the adults, he sets free the impulses and desires of schoolboys and –
almost – allows them to run their full course. So Jack, whom we presume to be arrogant and
bullying at school, becomes first a wrecker of Ralph and Piggy’s sensible plans, then a
dictator, and finally a murderer. Piggy, on the other hand, is a permanent victim of Jack’s
bullying and is killed. Clearly these disasters could have been prevented by the normal
orderliness of school life.
Piggy’s brains and Ralph’s self discipline result in positive achievements early in the novel,
such as the fire and the shelters. Difficulties only arise when this communal discipline is
overwhelmed by the arbitrary discipline of a cruel leader – Jack.