The Art Of Irony In Lord Of The Flies

William Golding, the winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize for literature, is among the most acclaimed and influential British authors of his decades. His first novel, Lord of the Flies, is one of the most widely read and widely admired novels in the English language in the twentieth century. Through the treatment of a group of boys on an isolated island Golding aims to achieve a universal theme dealing with complex issues of evil in human nature. The novel is conceived in a very different moral landscape and becomes the authentic expression of the postwar age. It successfully catches the mood of the postwar Europe when people cast doubts on whether there could ever be a lasting peace.This thesis aims to make an attempting probe into the skillful art of irony in Lord of the Flies. Since the publication of the novel, critics have given various interpretations about it, but few have made a detailed analysis on the use of irony in it. Therefore, the author believes that to investigate the presence of irony in the novel will be rewarding.In analyzing the vigorous and forceful irony in Lord of the Flies, this thesis attempts to approach Golding's art of irony. Lord of the Flies is an elaborate web of ironies. It is woven with irony of characters and irony of plot. The major characters, the supposed innocent English children, turn out to be savage and murderous. Their desired Utopia on the island turns into dystopia. Their cherished rescue by the adults to their familiar civilized home proves to be illusive, and renders the final salvation impossible. With the characteristic and effective, incisive and vivid irony, Golding gives a full expression of thematic issues about human nature and human future. Because the darkness of man's heart is the source of all evil, all well-intentioned endeavors are in vain. In Lord of the Flies, human regress outruns progress and the inevitable doom is destined, outshining the long-established physical and spiritual salvation. Faced with such pessimistic ironic prospects, we are startled at the realization that the final human salvation only lies in self-examination and self-cultivation.