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In Lord of the Flies, William Golding didn’t spend any time fooling around. He wanted you to know that there’s a savage lurking within each of us. And he wanted you to know how that savage gets out. That’s why two major themes in Lord of the Flies are … well, watch the video and find out.

Video Transcription:

Here’s the scoop on the themes in Lord of the Flies: William Golding was not an optimist. More on that in a moment.

You can think of Golding’s main themes as two different, but related, sets of contrasts:

Civilization versus savagery.

And

Innocence versus experience.

If you’ve been watching since Recap 1, you know that Lord of the Flies is—say it with me—an allegory. So the civilization/savagery theme is represented by the Ralph/Jack relationship.

The conflict between the two boys is symbolic of the conflict within each human being’s own psyche. It’s the conflict between the instinct toward order, toward caring for each other, and the primal instinct of anarchy and impulse.

What happens as we give in to impulse? That’s theme two—the loss of innocence.

From Golding’s perspective, the loss of innocence comes as we open ourselves up to the savagery and evil that are innate in each human being.

To encapsulate: The themes in Lord of the Flies suggest that Golding didn’t hold out much hope for the human race.