Context of LOTF
The Cold War
Widespread cultural panic over nuclear destruction and man's capacity for warfare
First atomic bombs dropped at Hiroshima in Japan on 6 August 1945
After Hiroshima - USSR and US began building their nuclear arsenals
1949 Soviet Union detonated its first A-bomb (beginning of Cold War)
Ideological battle between belief systems - Communist USSR and Capitalist US
Golding's personal experience of war
Golding was a member of the British Navy during WWII
Captain of a ship that assisted the invasion at Normandy (D-Day)
Experiences directly informed his view of man's capacity for cruelty
'Man produces evil as a bee produces honey'
Public school
G. worked as a headmaster at a boys school after the war
Choirboys would have been a high status group - J can 'sing C sharp'
Set book among schoolboys not grown men fighting - themes of brutality and and breakdown of civilisation innate and inevitable
Explores the class divide - Piggy socially unequal and his accent is mocked (also wear glasses and has asmar)
Golding saw the relationship and interactions of boys at school
Bullying
Tribal inclinations
In the novel the boys talk a lot about being evacuated
Piggy overheard the pilot talk about an 'atom bomb' before they crashed
Criticising totalitarian regimes
1950s - Soviet Union was ascendant
Camps for political dissenters
Violent political surges
Breadth of government domestic power
Awareness grew of the holocaust in Nazi Germany and the fascist regime
Golding interest in the term 'groupthink'
George Orwell in 1984 (LOTF released in 1954)
Describe how good people are able to excuse or enable justice (through coersion and fear)
Influence of other fiction
The Coral Island
3 school boys marooned on an island
Boys show bravery and valour in a series of adventures and conquests
'Jack' the most knowledgeable (becomes leader), 'Ralph' is second in command and 'Peterkin' is helpful but timid
Golding swaps the main characters to subvert expectations that readers have about what makes a good leader
Swallows and Amazons
Set in the Lake District
Set on an island
Children camp. sail and explore
Children always rescued and come home safely - go on more exotic and unusal adventures
Children always rescued and come home safely - go on more exotic and unusal adventures
In other novels there are external antagonists or threats but in LOTF the boys are their own enemies
Ironic comparisons of the stories highlight the horrors his characters are experiencing