On The Continuation And Development Of Desert Island Literature In Lord Of The Flies

William Golding(1911-1993), one of the most outstanding English novelists, published his first novel Lord of the Flies in 1954. The novel is about a group of British schoolboys stuck on a desert island who try to govern themselves but end up with conflict and slaughter. As an allegorical novel, it exposes the evil of human nature, shows the tension between the civilization and barbarism, rationalism and irrationalism. Though the theme of the novel is controversial, Lord of the Flies brings Golding great reputation and a lasting fame. Golding won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983 and was ranked on the list of “ The 50 greatest British writers since 1945”.Lord of the Flies is a typical desert island novel. As a branch of marine literature, desert island literature has a long history in English literature. The most well known ones are the Tempest by Shakespeare, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe and The Coral Island by R.M. Ballantyne. The previous research of Lord of the Flies mainly focused on the thematic study of evil and ignored the intertextuality between Lord of the Flies and the traditional desert island literature. This thesis tries to put Lord of the Flies into the historical chain of desert island literature, exploring the features and sophisticated themes of Lord of the Flies by comparing it with traditional desert island literature.Chapter One defines Lord of the Flies as a piece of desert island literature. Golding follows the plot pattern of desert island literature, which is “peril—live on an uninhabited island—back to the civilized world”. With the desert island as the background of the story and caucasian males as leading characters, Lord of the Flies is no doubt the continuation of the traditional desert island literature. However, as a contemporary novel in the 20 th century, Lord of the Flies is very different from the previous ones. World War I and World War II had brought great grief to the whole world and the faith to the God and the belief to Rationalism began to shake. In this situation, Golding wrote his masterpiece Lord of the Flies to express his profound consideration about mankind.Chapter Two analyses the chronotope of the desert island. Chronotope is about the configuration of space and time. The island is the space where the story takes place. The differences of the space between Lord of the Flies and the traditional island literature indicate Golding's thought about the nature and the environment. When it comes to time, traditional desert island literature follows a forward timeline while Lord of the Flies goes a contrary direction. The breakdown of Ralph's democratic governance and the barbarization of the human nature suggest the backward of the island time.Chapter Three discusses the breakthrough of realistic writing techniques in Lord of the Flies. Metaphors and symbolisms are wildly used in Lord of the Flies. This chapter mainly analyses two important characters—Piggy, symbolizes science and Simon, who symbolizes Jesus and Christianity. Their death signifies Golding's deep concern about the fragility of science and the dying of the belief to Christianity.The concluding part summarizes the whole thesis. Lord of the Flies is obviously influenced by traditional desert island literature. However, Golding has made an improvement and a breakthrough. By changing the chronotope of the desert island and applying symbolisms to the traditional realistic writing techniques, William Golding expresses his consideration about modern civilization and the nature of human beings.