Lord of the Flies: Overview (AQA GCSE English Literature)

The Lord of the Flies: Overview

Lord of the Flies is Section A of Paper 2 of your GCSE English Literature examination. You are expected to write one essay-length answer to one set question (from a choice of two) and, unlike with the Shakespeare and 19th-century novel questions, you will not be given an extract from the text. This can seem daunting at first, but this page contains some helpful information and links to more detailed revision note pages, that will enable you to feel confident answering any question on Lord of the Flies. This page includes:

• A summary of Lord of the Flies

• Lord of the Flies plot

• A brief overview of what is required in the exam

• Lord of the Flies characters

• Lord of the Flies context

• Lord of the Flies themes

• Lord of the Flies quotes

• Top tips for the highest grade

Lord of the Flies summary

Lord of the Flies is a novel, written in 1954, by the English writer William Golding. Golding was born in 1911 in Cornwall, England, and grew up in Wiltshire, before going on to graduate with a degree in English from Oxford University. After Oxford he became a teacher and schoolmaster, teaching a variety of subjects in a number of schools for over 20 years, only interrupted by his military service during World War Two. It is both Golding’s experiences teaching young boys, and his first-hand experience of warfare in the Royal Navy, that informed his novel Lord of the Flies. 

The novel is set in the midst of a fictional nuclear world war, which allows Golding to explore ideas about violence, different styles of leadership and power. Golding also explores themes such as the loss of innocence – and human nature – through the presentation of his characters. The children in Lord of the Flies represent all human beings and civilisation, and using characters (or settings, such as the uninhabited island) to explore philosophical ideas is known in literature as allegory. Using children as his protagonists allows him to explore human nature at its most innocent and basic, and his message is ultimately a pessimistic one: all human beings, including children, have a natural capacity for evil. 

For more details on Golding’s use of allegory and symbolism, and other literary techniques, see our Lord of the Flies: Methods and Techniques  page.

Lord of the Flies plot

During an unnamed world war, a group of boys crash land on a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Two of the boys – Ralph and Piggy – look to establish order on the island so that they might work together to survive long enough to be rescued. Ralph is elected the leader of the boys in a vote. However, another boy, Jack, has different ideas about how the island should be run. Instead of building shelters, gathering fresh drinking water and tending to a signal fire, he wants to hunt pigs on the island, and increasingly rejects the rules set out by Ralph. This leads to a split in the group, with Jack leading a second ‘tribe’ on the island. Meanwhile, many of the boys are terrified of an imaginary monster and mistake a dead parachutist for this ‘beast’. In the panic and confusion, the boys become frenzied, so that when a boy, Simon, emerges from the trees at night-time all of the boys attack and kill him. This tragedy – far from chastening the boys – only leads to further acts of violence and torture as Jack’s rule increasingly resembles a reign of terror. Ralph and Piggy look to reason with Jack, but after an argument Piggy is killed and Ralph chased into the jungle. Just before Jack and his tribe descend on Ralph, they see a naval officer who has come to rescue them. Realising what they have become, all the boys weep in shame. For a more detailed summary, please see the Lord of the Flies: Plot Summary page.

How is Lord of the Flies assessed in the exam?

• The English Literature Paper 2 requires you to answer four questions (three on poetry) in 2hrs 15min. That means you have approximately 45 minutes to plan, write and check your Lord of the Flies essay

• Paper 2 is worth 96 marks and accounts for 60% of your overall GCSE grade

• The Lord of the Flies essay is worth 34 marks in total, because it also includes 4 marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar

• Section A of Paper 2 contains the Lord of the Flies question and you are required to answer only one of the two printed questions on the novel

• Unlike the Shakespeare and 19th-century novel questions, you will not receive an extract from the text in your exam

• It is also a closed-book exam, which means you will not have access to a copy of the novel in your exam

• You will be asked a question that asks you to analyse and write in detail about an aspect of Lord of the Flies

For a much more detailed guide on answering the Lord of the Flies question, please see our revision notes on How to Answer the Modern Prose and Drama Essay Question. 

Lord of the Flies characters

Although Golding includes many characters in Lord of the Flies, the characters you should focus on when revising are:

• Ralph

• Piggy

• Jack

• Simon

• Roger

It is always vital to remember – when considering Lord of the Flies, or any text – that characters are deliberate constructions created by a novelist for a purpose. These characters often represent ideas, or belief systems, and a writer, like the philosophically minded William Golding, uses these characters to explore these ideas and beliefs through them. For more details on how Golding uses his characters in Lord of the Flies to explore human nature and religion, please see the Lord of the Flies: Characters revision notes page.

Lord of the Flies context

Understanding how to include context in a GCSE essay is challenging, so it is first necessary to figure out what examiners really mean when they talk about context. They define context not as historical information, or biographical facts about a writer, but as the ideas and perspectives explored by a writer through their text. Therefore, the Lord of the Flies context you should explore in your essay response is not historical information about the Cold War, or irrelevant facts about William Golding’s own life, but ideas about:

• The consequences of war

• Loss of innocence

• Social class

• Christianity

Lots of these ideas and perspectives are still relevant today, so your own opinions on them are valid, and examiners welcome them in an essay. For a detailed breakdown of the contextual topics listed above, see the Lord of the Flies: Context page.

Lord of the Flies themes

Understanding the themes that are prevalent in Lord of the Flies will enable you to reach the highest levels of the GCSE mark scheme. This is because to be rewarded top marks on your essay, you need to take what examiners call a “conceptualised approach”: a detailed and perceptive exploration of Golding’s ideas and intentions. The main themes explored by William Golding in Lord of the Flies are:

• Civilisation versus savagery

• Good versus evil

• Religion

• Power and leadership

You are encouraged to explore other themes that Golding explores in his novel, because bringing original ideas when interpreting a text is always rewarded highly at GCSE. However, the above list makes a great place to start, and detailed breakdowns of each of these themes can be found on our Lord of the Flies: Themes page.

Lord of the Flies quotes

It is, of course, important to learn quotations for your Lord of the Flies exam question, especially since it is a closed-book exam and you will not have a printed extract on your paper. However, it is worth stating here that examiners value “references” to the novel just as highly as direct quotations: this is when students pinpoint individual moments in the text, rather than quoting what the characters say. In order to select references really successfully, it is extremely important that you know the plot of Lord of the Flies itself very well, including the order of the events that take place. This detailed act-by-act breakdown of the plot will help you to revise the chronology of Lord of the Flies.

Of course, it is also useful to revise a few – very well selected – quotations from the novel that can be used in a variety of essays on different themes and characters. Luckily, we have made that selection for you! For a ‘translation’ and detailed analysis of each of these quotations, see our Lord of the Flies: Key Quotations page.

Top tips for the highest grade

Please see our revision pages on the Modern Prose and Drama exam for guides on:

• Structuring the Lord of the Flies essay

• Lord of the Flies methods and techniques

• How to include context in a Modern Prose essay

• Understanding the Lord of the Flies mark scheme

• A Modern Prose and Drama model answer