I was chatting with my high schooler and she mentioned that due to the condensed school year (Covid strikes again!), that she will not be reading Load of the Flies. So like any good mom who may not have actually read that book in high school but recognizes the title and thinks that there may be a movie night involved - I suggest that we all read the book and have our own little book club! Since reading is oddly new to me (it took me until I was firmly into adulthood to enjoy reading) - I have never been a part of a book club. Cheers to 'firsts'!
The author of Lord of the Flies is this handsome man:
He grew up in England, the son of a science teacher. His mother ran the household and also campaigned for woman's suffrage (the right to vote for women). His mother would often tell him ghost stories from her own childhood in Cornwall.
Cornwall is full of ghosts and ghost stories - check these ghosts out! https://youtu.be/gajWPreXZDc
It is the perfect place for ghosts and their stories - it's full of moors and fog! Spoooky!
Goldberg was a school teacher of English, Greek, Philosophy, Music, Drama and more throughout his career. He was married with two kiddos. He also enlisted in the Navy during the second world war. During that time he served on a boat that sunk the German battleship Bismark and commanded a landing craft on the beaches of Normandy during D-Day.
All of these things - ghost stories, a lifetime in education, a military career that involved seeing things he could not unsee - shape Goldberg's writings.
Let's take a look at the historical context of Lord of the Flies. The original idea came when Goldberg read The Coral Island: a Tale of the Pacific Ocean and asked himself what would happen if kids were really left on a deserted island? The question reflected the realism of the day and not the optimism of the past. Although his book was published in 1954 in Britain after a number of re-writes, a book takes a while to write so it's useful to understand the world in which the book was written. So - a bit of history!
1954 England was not the 2021 England that we think of - it was still a bombed out mess with most grandparents having supported WWI, most parents having supported WWII with the current young adults serving their 2 years National Guard mandatory service. Young boys played games where the Germans were the enemies. War was a way of life in a country that participated in the Korean War from 1950-53 and spent 6.6% of their GDP to build the world second largest navy and air force. Additionally, they became the world's third nuclear power in 1953 when they detonated an atomic bomb off the coast of Australia.
All the spending on defense and a post-war economy meant that some items were still rationed in 1954. Want butter? rationed.
Want meat? rationed.
Tea? rationed.
Coat? rationed.
Bread? finally not rationed.
But industry was booming! So much so that Great Britain was very polluted and in 1952, there was a smog that lasted for 4 days and killed 4000 people from heart and lung disease.
Everyday life included enjoying simple pleasures instead of lavish vacations. The news was a focal point of pop culture and women took care of the home after marriage (typically!). People went to see films and listened to the radio. This was Goldberg's world!
Themes to look for:
- individuality vs group-think
- rational reactions vs emotional reactions
- morality vs immorality
- civility vs savagery
- loss of innocence
maybe there will be more!
Enjoy!
