Lord of the Flies an allegory for Trump's America
Patricia Edgar

Lord of the Flies, a parable for our times is now a television series, it can also be seen as an allegory for Trump's America.

It birthed as a novel by William Golding in 1954 after rejection from 21 publishers. When released it was simultaneously lauded and condemned. It went out of print selling only 3000 copies but was resurrected in the 60s by academics studying literature and a successful British feature film. The novel is one of the most influential books written, recommended by the American Library Association, placed on school curricula around the world, but challenged in North Carolina, Texas, Iowa and Canada for racism, sexism, violence and profanity, throughout the 70's to the 90's.

Golding was a teacher at a reputable boy's grammar school before and after he fought in World War 2. Lord of the Flies was the first book in his subsequent writing career.

He used The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean a popular novel for children written in 1857 by  Scottish  author  R. M. Ballantyne as a starting point for Lord of the Flies. Ballantyne's story is a romanticised adventure about three boys marooned on a  South Pacific  island who worked together in harmony exhibiting high moral character to survive their ordeal. Golding even named his lead characters Jack and Ralph after those in Ballantyne's book.

But Lord of the Flies offered a bleaker, pessimistic and more realistic perspective, with Golding showing how, without the constraints of civilization and the rule of law, a group of grammar school educated British boys, on their own, descended into savagery, violence and war.

About thirty boys, young'uns and early teens survive a plane crash on an isolated island. Two potential leaders emerge, Ralph a popular boy and Jack, head of the choir boys, who remain as a pack. Ralph is elected leader and Piggy, a fat boy with spectacles, never named, ridiculed and laughed at as the perennial outsider, is the voice of reason and practical advice. They agree with Ralph, following Piggy's advice, they need to set rules; to set a fire in hope they will be found, look after the young'uns, build shelters and find food. "That's what grown-ups would do."

Jack, who is peeved he wasn't elected leader wants to hunt, have fun and look for the pigs to kill. Gradually order disintegrates. The young'uns are scared at night of noises and a monster, "a beastie", one claims to have seen. Loyalties shift and Jack leads growing numbers of former rule-followers, to come to his side by intimidation. They paint their faces which liberates them as savages and run wild chanting. "Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood."

Piggy's voice of reason is mocked, and through threat, fear and paranoia, those compliant side with Jack, who is becoming unhinged and sociopathic by his power and weaponry. The pack descend into barbarity and killing - from pigs to peers.

The novel is an allegory, questioning whether evil is innate in human beings. Golding drew on his war experiences and his understanding that the boys he had taught in grammar school were not the romanticised figures depicted in children's literature such as The Coral Island. His book was a deeply personal exploration of the "terrible disease of being human" and the potential for evil that he witnessed during World War 2. 

Artists have reinterpreted Golding's story on radio, on the stage, in three films (by Peter Brook in 1960 a British adaption, viewed as a masterpiece; by Alkitrang Dugo 1995- a Philippine adaption with a mixed cast of girls and boys; by Harry Hook in 1990 - a US production featuring American military cadets which is better forgotten). And now there is a television mini-series written by Jack Thorne, the co-creator of Adolescence (the award-winning mini-series of 2025), returning to the theme of the origins of violence in the young. The book, a literary classic remains in print, studied in schools worldwide and has sold over 25 million copies so far.

In time Golding regretted writing his novel which he considered "boring and crude".  Its classic status struck him as "a joke" and he grew weary of the varying, and often contradictory interpretations of his work. He resented the fact that it overshadowed his later works for which he earned the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983.

The questions raised by Lord of the Flies have been debated since man could think. Are we born evil? Is violence innate? Can we be socialised into civility and live together by the imposition of social rules? How should we be ruled and by whom?

Augustine (Confessions 397-398 CE) believed in original sin and thought reason alone could not find good in men without the help of God, man was too in thrall to his vices to govern himself.

Thomas Hobbes, in his work Leviathan, published in 1651 also argued that human beings are inherently evil, innately self-interested, lacking any moral compass; their primary instinct is survival, and they are driven by fear of death, to seek power and quest for glory. In that state, distrust and competition for resources, mean it is impossible for civility, industry, agriculture or culture to exist. They will kill and go to war.

Hobbes' answer was to form a social contract with the Leviathan (The sovereign) who must have absolute, indivisible power to be effective. Individuals should surrender their rights to this supreme authority in exchange for peace, stability, and personal security. The contract is between the people (the subjects), not between the people and the sovereign. Once the contract is made, it cannot be revoked, as doing so risks a return to chaos.

Subsequent philosophers, notably John Locke (1632-1704) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) argued that humans are innately good, compassionate, and cooperative in their natural state, but are corrupted by civilization, inequality, and society. The modern debates on whether humans are good or evil in psychology, behavioural biology, and philosophy, focus on whether morality is evolutionary, learned, or situational but the debates go on and we are no wiser.

At the end of Lord of the Flies, at the point of absolute anarchy and chaos with the jungle foliage in flames around them, Ralph is confronted by a British naval officer who has come ashore to investigate the smoke.

The officer takes in the scene of painted, bedraggled, filthy, young savages wielding spears and says, "What have you been doing? Having a war or something?"

Ralph nods.

"Nobody killed, I hope? Any dead bodies?'

"Only two and they've gone."

The officer leaned down and looked closely at Ralph. "Two? Killed? How many of you are there?" Ralph shook his head.

"I would have thought that a pack of British boys- you're all British aren't you - would have been able to put up a better show than that - I mean - "

Story ends.

The officer means British grammar schoolboys should be growing up to become politicians and naval officers and behaving as such.

That's where the allegory ends for us. For it seems today we are yet to find grown-ups around to bring Trump, our Leviathan, to heel, for ripping apart the social contracts put in place before him. Cowardice is rife among his underlings servicing his machinations, as were the followers of Jack.

I have heard none say what follows in our current state, better than Alistair Campbell on the podcast The Rest is Politics:

That because of the nature of our politics, the quality of our politicians and the political gene pool, the nihilism of much of the mainstream media with dissonance, hypocrisy, short termism, naivety, industrialised rage, and wilful ignorance off the scale, that we are becoming ungovernable"

Is Trump, who has assumed the role of Leviathan, leading us to a state where we are ungovernable?