Lord of the Flies PDF, Summary, Study Guide, Book GCSE Free

Lord of the Flies – Lord of the Flies is a novel written by Nobel Prize British novelist William Golding in 1954. The plot revolves around a bunch of British boys who become stuck on an isolated island and attempt to govern themselves terribly.

Lord of the Flies Book
Full TitleLord of the Flies
AuthorWilliam Golding
Type Of WorkNovel
GenreAllegory; dystopian fiction
LanguageEnglish
Pages251
Time And Place WrittenEarly 1950s; Salisbury, England
Date of First Publication1954
PublisherFaber and Faber

Lord of the Flies PDF Summary

  • The major conflict in Lord of the Flies is the struggle between Jack and Ralph. The fight for who will lead the island represents the clash between a peaceful democracy, as symbolized by Ralph, and a violent dictatorship, as symbolized by Jack. Both boys are potential leaders of the entire group, and though Jack grudgingly accepts Ralph’s leadership at first, as the plot develops their rivalry grows and intensifies until it is a struggle to the death. Ralph and Jack (and the boys who align themselves with each other) represent different values and different aspects of human nature.
  • Ralph represents respect for the law, duty, reason, and the protection of the weak, whereas Jack represents violence, cruelty, mob rule, government through fear, and tyranny. As we see Ralph’s hold over the other boys weaken and crumble until he is cast out and hunted, the story seems to show us that humanity’s violent and savage impulses are more powerful than civilization, which is inherently fragile. While Ralph is rescued at the last minute by a representative of civilization in the person of the naval officer, the fact that a global war is taking place underlines the idea that civilization itself is under serious threat from the forces of violence.
  • Set against the backdrop of global war, the book serves as a caution against the specific consequences of nuclear armament, as well as a broader examination of human nature and the destabilizing presence of man in the natural world. In telling its story through the experience of young boys isolated from the rest of civilization, and making few references to the world outside the confines of the island, the novel creates a sense of inevitability and universality to the specific tale of a small group battling nature and each other.
  • By making the two main characters emblematic of two approaches to society, Golding creates a conflict that seems to lead inexorably to the destruction of one of the characters but is instead resolved by the surprise introduction of the outside, ‘adult’ reality. In this way, the preceding events act as an allegory for the more consequential, and far more dangerous, actions of man beyond the island.
  • The book opens in the immediate aftermath of the plane crash that lands the boys on the island, so the novel’s inciting incident happens offstage. The reader first meets Ralph, who is introduced as graceful and physically appealing, and Piggy, who is presented as Ralph’s physical opposite. The boys discover a conch and use it to summon the rest of the survivors of the crash, introducing us to Jack, who appears confident and is already leading a group of boys.
  • The boys vote for Ralph to be the group’s chief, even though “the most obvious leader was Jack,” partly because Ralph possesses the conch. Jack reluctantly accepts Ralph’s leadership and the two bond in exploring the island together. Jack asserts himself after the humiliation of losing the vote for chief by slamming his knife into a tree and declaring that he will be a hunter, establishing the boys’ primary roles: Ralph will be in charge of communication and working to get them rescued, while Jack will be responsible for hunting for meat. Which of these two roles is more important will be the source of escalating conflict between the two for the remainder of the book.
  • The rising action of the novel takes place over the following chapters, as each boy on the island establishes his role in the order of the newly formed society, and Jack and Ralph find themselves increasingly at odds over what the group’s priorities should be and where they should expend energy. Ralph insists that a signal fire must be maintained constantly in case any ships pass the island, and believes the best use of resources is in collaborative work to watch the fire, build shelters, and gather fruit. Jack discovers a passionate enjoyment of hunting and allows the signal fire to go out while killing a pig, leading to a clash with Ralph, who has seen a ship pass while the fire is out.
  • The younger boys on the island express growing fears about a beast they believe comes out at night to menace them. In a scene the reader sees but none of the boy’s witnesses, a paratrooper crashes onto the top of the mountain, and the boys subsequently mistake his form for the beast, increasing their fears and making them vulnerable to Jack’s equation of killing pigs with vanquishing their fears, as their chants change from “kill the pig” to “kill the beast.”

Lord of the Flies PDF Link

The Google Drive link of Lord of the Flies is given below.

Lord of the Flies PDFGoogle Drive PDF

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