Social Criticism in Lord of the Flies

At the time Golding wrote the novel, Lord of the Flies, the world was caught in war with itself. Certain events during WWII such as the holocaust led people to begin to question civilization and human nature. Golding uses the Lord of the Flies as a social criticism which analyzes how a civilized culture can still commit primitive and even barbaric atrocities. Golding uses symbolism to create a social criticism. In Lord of the Flies, …

…slipped. To many, Lord of the Flies is just another adventure story about boys stranded on an island, but there are some who realize the true purpose behind the story about society, and how it is the only thing that keeps humans from their own evil selves. Golding realized this and used symbols such as the conch, Piggy’s glasses, and the boys hair to represent how they tried but failed to recreate a society.