Happy Are We

"The owner of the voice came backing out of the undergrowth so that the twigs scratched on a greasy wind-breaker. The naked crooks of his knees were plump, caught and scratched by thorns. He bent down, removed the thorns carefully, and turned round. He was shorter than the fair boy and very fat. He came forward, searching out safe lodgments for his feet, and then looked up through thick spectacles".(Golding 7) Many other descriptions show how William Golding's life and what was going on in the world at the time the book was written affected how the book portrayed.

William wrote Lord of the Flies when he was forty-three years old and having a lot of life experience to write about. William started school in 1921 at Marlborough Grammar school. (Caver) Later he went on to Bransenose College, Oxford for Natural Sciences. (Caver) William met Ann Brookfield in 1938 and in 1939 a few weeks after the declaration of the war they were married in the Registry Office. (Caver)In April of 1940 William became a teacher at Bishop Wordsworth's school. (Caver) His first child was born in September and he joined the Nay in December. (Caver) From 1941 to 1945William was in active service for the navy. (Caver) He started at HMS Galatea in the North Atlantic and then went to Liverpool where he was a guard on duty at the Gladstone Dock. (Caver)

In 1942 he was moved to a weapons research unit in Buckinghamshire. (Caver) At William's request he was returned to sea in 1943 and was soon after sent to New York to bring mindsweepers to the UK that had been built in New Jersey. (Caver) After that William was trained in landing crafts equipped with rocket guns and he was in command of two vessels that took part in the naval support for D-Day and the invasion of Walcheren. (Caver)In 1954 William left the Navy and went back to Bishop Wordsworth's school to continue teaching. (Caver) William started writing a book that was originally called Strangers From Within in 1952. (Caver) In January of 1953 he sent this book to many publishers unsuccessfully until Farber and Farber decided to publish it. In September 1954 the book was published as Lord of the Flies.

In the story all of the boys came from a boarding school which is similar to what William went to. He used his own experience and knowledge about school to portray these characters. Most likely they mirrored people he knew when he was in school. Also because he had become a teacher these characters were also probably portrayed after some of his students. This seemed to be the easiest for William to write because the characters are so complex and detailed Like he actually knew them. This is probably because school and students were what he was dealing with at the time when he wrote it. Having his own children just a while before he wrote the book also probably brought him back to childhood and got his imagination going.

Another part of William's life that affected the book are his years in the Navy. "The war appears to have been an important influence on him"(Bernard Oldsey, Henningfield) The parts in the book where the boys are hunting for the pigs seems to maybe be a situation he went through in the war or imagined about during his many hours on guard at the bay.

"Here, struck down by the heat, the sow fell and the hunters hurled themselves as her. This dreadful eruption from an unknown world made her frantic; she squealed and bucked and the air was full of sweat and noise and blood and terror. Roger ran round the heap, prodding with his spear whenever pig flesh appeared. Jack was on top of the sow, stabbing downward with his knife. Rodger found a lodgment for his point and began to push till he was leaning with his whole weight. The spear moved forward inch by inch and the terrified squealing became a high-pitched scream. Then Jack found the throat and the hot blood spouted over his hands. The sow collapsed under them and they were heavy and fulfilled upon her. The butterflies still danced, preoccupied in the center of the clearing". (Golding 123)

This is such a brutal attack seen as I am sure had happened to people in some sort of way in the war and Golding was probably just changes some of the things he had seen or heard about. Not only did William's experiences influence his writing but the outside world also affected his writing greatly.

When the book was originally written William named it Strangers From Within and then when it was printed and published it was renamed Lord of the Flies. I think that this was changed because it was too personal to William and didn't show a one specific part in the book. The boys in the book all sort of have strangers from within come out while they are on the island but they are too hard to pin point. The Lord of the Files title though is showing a part of the book in which they boys have pig heads on sticks and there are flies everywhere around it. This was all influenced by the publishers to make the book sound more interesting. It makes you really want to know what or who the lord of the flies is. Most books are changed in these kinds of ways because they authors are influenced by the editors or publishers.

One major event that was going on at the time Lord of the Flies was written was World War two and the holocaust. (Wells) The character Jack has power over all of the other characters and is the leader for the majority of the time. In the time period of World War two Hitler was in power and Jack's rise and fall from power is like that of Hitler's.(Wells) All of the boys followed what Jack wanted and didn't question their leader "Ð''I'm chief. We've got to make that certain. Can't you see the mountain? There's no signal showing. There may be a ship out there. Are you all off you rockers?' Mutinously, the boys fell silent or muttering. Jack lead the way to the bridge". (Golding 98) Hitler believed that the Jews could turn everyone against him and so he had to take the power away from them by killing them.(Wells) With Jack he felt threatened by Simon because he was next in line to be leader. In the end Simon probably would have been to better leader and Jack knew that so he got every one in the heat of the moment after they had tried to kill a pig and cornered Simon and they all killed him so that Jack's power wouldn't be threatened.

"The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched