Lord of the flies - William Golding > Reviews

Advantages: Superbly written, imaginative detail
Disadvantages: May have been over analysed in schools

...has both read the book Lord of the Flies and watched the TV series Lost could not help to notice the similarities. Being that William Golding wrote Lord of the Flies in 1954 he is considered to be well beyond his time in his writing. I first read this book for my GCSEs and have read it again and again since, having much more enjoyment reading it for pleasure than analysing every single sentence. The Author ************** William Golding was ... Read review

Advantages: Can be analysed on many different scales.
Disadvantages: Can be seen s as simplistic and boring if the true menaing is not understood

...you can definitely do with Lord of the Flies. On the simplest level, it can be taken as a story of bullying, where one child takes power of the majority and then picks on the weak one who always speaks his mind and seems to stick out like a sore thumb. On a deeper level, it looks at the possibility that most people, despite the fact they have come from civilised societies, can turn in to a savage brutal beings. Further more, when this brutality ... Read review

Advantages: a real modern classic with a moral
Disadvantages: the school connection puts a lot of people off

...teachers!), is the island setting. Lord of the Flies has a strong connection with an earlier novel, Coral Island, by R.M. Ballantyne. In this novel a group of boys set up a civilisation and overcome numerous difficulties. Golding obviously felt that this view of human nature was false, and so in Lord of the Flies the boys have everything they need to survive but their society still falls apart. This can also be seen as a damning denouncement of ... Read review

Advantages: Excellent
Disadvantages: Force read

Lord Of the Flies- it’s won a Nobel Prize for Literature, however this is not the main reason why it read so frequently. This book has become immensely famous and public since it was put on the GCSE syllabus and millions of children worldwide are forced to spend hours reading and studying it. Of course I was one of these children, I endured what felt like several millennia of English lessons with the most patronising and annoying teacher ... Read review

Advantages: Easy To Understand
Disadvantages: Could be depressing

‘The Lord Of The Flies’ by William Golding, is a novel that traces the deterioration of civilisation amongst a group of young boys. These young boys had been on an airplane, being evacuated in time of war. Their plane crashes and they are left stranded on an idyllic tropical island. The island is beautiful, with all the necessities for sustaining comfortable human life, but the events that take place destroy the paradise image of the island. The ... Read review

Advantages: Very cleverly written
Disadvantages: Once you've read it on a symbolic level, you can't just read it as a story about boys on an island again.

Like so many of the reviewers, I read this for my GCSE Eng Lit exam. At first, I admit I wasn't keen. The symbolism seemed too obvious and I prefered other novels that criticised society by creating a microcosm of it like Animal Farm by George Orwell. I have to abmit though, the novel is good. The idea of the boys being away from society and showing how the lack of society's rules and restrictions makes them revert to primative savagery, yet they ... Read review

Advantages: Masterfully crafted, stunning read.
Disadvantages: Difficult to understand some of the older language, over descriptive in some places.

Being another 'encouraged' to read this novel at school, I found that I did rather enjoy the old language, and intrigue plot-line. The beginning chapter shows the first signs of rivalry between Jack and Ralph, the two main leaders of the story who will continue to butt-heads with each other throughout, only coming to compromises to any decisions, although at the end of the tale there is a rather more chilling story. With Ralph as the chosen leader, ... Read review

Advantages: A very well writen book
Disadvantages: not as god the second timeo

The book lord of the flies is based on the theme power. And what happens to s group of boys when their plane crashes into the sea and they are stranded on an island without any adults. When the boys first arrive on the island they are very civilised, when they fall over they pull their socks up, which is what they would of done if they were back at school. They boys arte innocent, they play like young boys and go swimming in the sea. At first they ... Read review

Advantages: An interesting study of Human Nature
Disadvantages: Golding is really depressing

“Lord of the Flies” was written by William Golding shortly after WW2. I had already been told of the basic plot synopsis, and to be perfectly honest, I was not particularly intrigued by a ‘load of kids’ descending into cannibalism, tribal warfare and murder; how could such a ridiculous tale pass off as a good read? It was therefore a great surprise to me that this book was all the things I had least expected- intriguing, entertaining ... Read review

Advantages: fantastically written, wonderful munipulation of language and characters.
Disadvantages: It is hard to put down, hard to forget and hard to accept just how intelligent people can really be.

When i was handed this book on the last day of term, i doubted whether this would add to all the fun i was going to have over the summer holidays. Lets face it, being given a 225 page book to read isn't exactly the best thing we could have got! But as i opened it and read 'The Sound of The Shell, i knew how fantastic this book was going to be. So here i am, writing a review on perhaps one of the best pieces of literature i have studied. (obviously ... Read review

Advantages: Good for school level as people of similar age in story
Disadvantages: Can be long and repetitive at times

...hears the voice of the Lord of the Flies. "Fancy thinking the beast was something you could hunt and kill…you knew didn't you? I'm part of you? Close, close, close! I'm the reason it's no go? Why things are what they are?" Simon has the ability to take a step out from the rest of the boys and view human nature from the outside. He can see clearly the demise of their civilisation and can see why it is failing. Simon clearly identifies the problem as ... Read review

Advantages: A fabulous storyline with an underlying message
Disadvantages: The tragic ending

I initially read 'Lord of the Flies' because it was a set text for my english GCSE. Although I wasn't keen on reading this novel (I had seen the film adaptation a few years earlier and found it very disturbing)my opinion soon changed. The storyline was very emotive. When a group of schoolboys crash land on a tropical island paradise, they must keep control if they are to be rescued, for there are no 'sensible' adults. Their naive sense of control ... Read review