Rites of Passage by William Golding has a few themes persistent throughout the book, one of which is the duality of human nature and of the human condition: good and evil; the primal and the divine; retribution and atonement; and literal geographical antipodes and metaphorical ones about man's duality.

As the title suggests, the overall theme of the story is a progression towards transcending man's primitive stages. In the literal sense, the rites of passage on the ship marks the moment one becomes a full gentleman, or what the narrator believes is a holistic Christian gentleman possessing virtues.

The other theme of the book is the concept of justice. In a ship out at sea, the primal urges and animalistic nature of man is unleashed, and there is a fragile legal system on a boat. It is similar to the remote island in Lord of the Flies, in which a small confined society develops their own laws because there is no higher authority to implement regulation and moral codes.

This claustrophobic setting allows the author to examine the thin veil separating the antipodes of humans; how easy it is to regress to primitive psychological stages in the absence of legal authority. This is where we see the weaknesses of justice and the legal system, which are social constructs, in the face of man's primal nature.