Lord of the Flies Themes

One of the big questions raised by Lord of the Flies is whether the boys in their primitive actions are reverting to a somehow inferior state of life, or whether they are driven to their natural an...

The loss of innocence is a major theme in Lord of the Flies. The boys stranded on the island at just the age (between six and twelve, roughly) to leave the idealism of youth and face the actuality...

At the heart of this novel is the question of whether the problems of society and all its ills can be traced back to the defects of human nature. Golding seems to be saying that yes, this is the ca...

From the beginning of the novel, the boys struggle with fear of the unknown. They fear what they cannot see, the parts of the island they haven’t explored, the mysterious beast, and of course...

Power is often a source of violence in Lord of the Flies. The desire for power breaks down the boundaries set by rules and order, causes strife and competition, and governs the actions of many of t...

As the boys in Lord of the Flies grow more violent, they begin painting their faces with clay, supposedly so the pigs won’t see them, but in reality to make themselves feel better about their...

Lord of the Flies can be read, at least in part, as a religious allegory. It features the character Simon as a Christ-figure who is killed by the other boys. Following this train of thought, the is...

Knowledge in Lord of the Flies is more about awareness and wisdom than anything else. There are certain important truths that some characters are privy to and others are not. The characters that ar...