Lord of the Flies Group

Question:

smashinladyshay
smashinladyshay
Student
High School - 11th Grade

Why do you think the author chooses an island with no adults for the setting of the story?

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Posted by smashinladyshay on Tuesday November 3, 2009 at 5:06 PM and tagged with lord of the flies, william golding.

Answers:


  1. pohnpei397 Teacher
    Community / Jr. College

    eNotes Editor

    According to William Golding, "The Lord of the Flies" was meant to be

    "an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature."

    In order to successfully do this, he needed to have the children be in an environment that had no adults.

    Essentially, what Golding is trying to do is to look at what people would be like in a "state of nature" where there are no rules and no previous society to tell us how to live.

    If the children had had adults on the island, the adults would have made rules and would have brought the ideals of their society with them.

    But because they kids are on their own, there's no one who has the right to tell them what to do and there's no one to tell them what society expects.

    So it was necessary to have there be no adults if Golding was going to be able to achieve his purpose.

     

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/lord-of-the-flies/themes

    Rate answer:

    Posted by pohnpei397 on Tuesday November 3, 2009 at 5:27 PM