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Golding’s first published novel was Lord of the Flies (1954; film 1963 and 1990), a story of a group of schoolboys isolated on a coral island who revert to savagery. Its imaginative and brutal depiction of the rapid and inevitable dissolution of social mores aroused widespread interest. The Inheritors (1955), set in the last days of Neanderthal man, is another story of the essential violence and depravity of human nature. The guilt-filled reflections of a naval officer, his ship torpedoed, who faces an agonizing death are the subject of Pincher Martin (1956). Two other novels, Free Fall (1959) and The Spire (1964), also demonstrate Golding’s belief that “man produces evil as a bee produces honey.” Darkness Visible (1979) tells the story of a boy horribly burned in the London blitz during World War II. His later works include Rites of Passage (1980), which won the Booker McConnell Prize, and its sequels, Close Quarters (1987) and Fire Down Below (1989). Golding was knighted in 1988.
Lord of the Flies is the first and greatest work of William Golding, which leaves him an important position in the history of English Literary. William Golding puts characters in Lord of the Flies in an isolated environment far away from the civilized society to reveal human nature. He depicts a tragic scene that a group of children expose their wild natures in a deserted and self-control world.
Many foreign critics examine this book from the view of symbolism and island literature. For example, E. L. Epstein and Fatima Anjum both think that the theme which Golding wants to express is to trace the defect of human society to human nature. It means that the defect exposed in this book can be traced to the defect of society. In other words, these boys on the island are the epitome of people outside. They are acting just like what the civilized grown-ups act. Some other critics examine this book from the view of myth. John F. Fitzgerald and John R. Kayser hold the view that the separation of rational and revelatory knowledge is both the essence and illness of the west. Domestic critics who do a research on human nature can be classified into three types: The view of the first type is set on mythology, represented by the author Li She compares Lord of the Flies with Coral Island and puts forward a conclusion that people should know about the evil in their nature and control it consciously. The view of second type is set on science and technology, represented by the and They use the shell and glasses as examples and put forward the idea that human nature is not evil. It is just affected by the frequent use of tools, which decreases the communication between people and causes alienation in human nature. The third type is represented by the author Chen Liping. She thinks the loss of “origin” adds openness and randomness to the interpretation of this novel so it is arbitrary to decide whether the human nature is evil or not.