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Civilisation and savagery in Lord of the Flies — theme analysis

Lord of the Flies · William Golding · Set text on AQA GCSE English Literature (8702) — Modern texts option; not on Pearson Edexcel International GCSE (4ET1) · Grade 9 Notes

In one sentence. The boys bring rules, assemblies and a conch to the island; the novel watches them fall away.

Build your reading of civilisation and savagery in Lord of the Flies, teach it to an AI pupil, then defend it in a marked debate — this study carries all three.

How civilisation and savagery works in Lord of the Flies

The novel sets up the signs of civilisation early: an elected chief, assemblies, the conch as a symbol of the right to speak, a plan for shelters and a signal fire. Against them grow the hunt, the painted faces, the chants and the feasts. The fire goes out; the shelters are left unfinished; the assemblies fall apart; Piggy's glasses are stolen; the conch is shattered. By the end the boys are hunting a boy.

Key moment. Jack, at an early assembly, calling for rules because they are English and not savages (Chapter 2). Jack's early claim sets the measure by which the novel judges the boys — and him.

The novel's use of savage is itself a product of its time: it draws on a colonial way of speaking about other peoples, and the boys' painted faces and chants borrow from stereotypes. A strong essay can notice that the novel locates savagery not in any other people but in British schoolboys, which turns the stereotype back on those who used it.

Context that changes the reading. The novel was published in 1954, after the Second World War, in which the most civilised nations had carried out mass killing. The boys are being evacuated during a new war in which an atom bomb is mentioned. Golding had served in the Royal Navy during the war and had worked as a schoolteacher.

Use this in an essay. Frame: Golding gives the boys every sign of civilisation and then shows how little those signs restrain them.

The characters who carry civilisation and savagery

An essay on civilisation and savagery is built from the characters. Each line below is from that character's own study — follow it for the full analysis.

  • Ralph — the conch and the fire.
  • Jack Merridew — Jack's insistence that they are not savages.
  • Piggy — the glasses and the conch.
  • Roger — the stones that miss.

Essays on civilisation and savagery in Lord of the Flies

How does Golding present the breakdown of civilisation in Lord of the Flies?

Thesis: Golding sets up rules, assemblies and the conch and then removes them one by one, showing civilisation as a thin layer over human nature.

  1. The conch and the vote: order set up, and Jack's insistence that they are not savages.
  2. Roger's stones that miss, held back by the old rules.
  3. The fire out, the first kill, the painted faces and the hunters' chant.
  4. Simon's death and Piggy's, and the shattering of the conch.
  5. The officer and Ralph's tears for lost innocence.

Thesis statements that argue it

  • Golding gives the boys every sign of civilisation and then shows how little those signs restrain them.
  • Golding uses Roger's stones that miss and the rock that kills to measure civilisation's collapse.

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  1. Teach it — Explain your reading of civilisation and savagery in Lord of the Flies to Ember, an AI pupil who has not made one, and answer the awkward question. Understanding is credited; wording is not required.
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