Lord Of The Flies, The Effects Of The Setting Essay, Research Paper

In the novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding the setting had a very strong influence in the actions and attitudes of the characters. Setting is the defined in literature as where the story takes place. In Lord of the Flies, the setting is on a deserted tropical island in the middle of the ocean, where a microcosm is able to be established.

Three specific examples of how setting influenced the actions and attitudes of the characters are: The isolation from a civilized world, the mysteries of an unfamiliar place, and different social types being forced to live with one another. How these examples are to be proven will be developed in the following paragraphs.

Being on an island in the middle of the ocean, cut off the life line, of a highly civilized society, that took hundreds of years to develop. Due to the age and experience of the boys, such ideals of what it takes to be civilized are not developed to that of an adult s. When the boys are put in a world without rules, punishment, and order, it leads to a very progressive deterioration of what they have learnt to be “civilized”. Without boundaries from authority figures, the boys feel as if they can do what ever they want, or as how they put it “to have fun”. In the beginning things where fine. An organized society had been formed where Ralph was elected chief, and others where assigned specific duties. However as time goes by, things start to deteriorate, the boys are sick of doing their duties, and compassion and respect for others is lost, all of which make up a civilized society. This is highlighted with the Murder of Piggy and Simon. The crave for the hunt over being rescued, and the demotion of Ralph as chief.

The mysteries of the island also had a huge impact on the actions of the boys. Because The tropical island, and England are two totally different environments there was not much know to the boys about the unfamiliar surrounding possessed by the island. The vines that hung from the trees caused the “littluns” to have nightmares because they reminded them of snakes, or “beasties”. What was unknown to the boys caused great fear. This fear of the unknown caused differences amongst the boys which lead to their destruction. Since Simon knew that there was no such things as “beasties” He tried to dispel the mysteries of the mountain top, he is brutally murdered, due to the fear rooted in the mysteries of the island.

Having such a divers array of people living in such close proximity, and not being able to escape one another also influenced the attitudes, and actions of the boys. In normal circumstances, when two people don t get along it is relatively easy to not be around them, and hang around with others in which your more compatible with. However due to the fact that they are on a rather small island, and that their society only consists of a few people, it is not so easy for rare intellectual to escape people with ideals opposite to their own. Therefore often suffers defeat. This is very true in the case of Piggy. Piggy was the thinker of the society, and had more mature qualities of being civilized than most of the other boys. His way of thinking always conflicted with others such as Jack who s ideals where possessed by almost every other boy on the island, often causing him to be the outcast. There was no sanctum for Piggy, he was always going to suffer defeat as long as he was on that island.

In conclusion setting had a major effect on the events that lead to the end of the novel. If it where to have taken place in any other scenario such as a meadow things would have taken a different turn. The setting proved to be a key role in how Golding gave life to the characters of the novel lord of the Flies.