My understanding is that Golding wanted to argue against the politically inspired notion that all that is wrong with us arises from society and bad social organisation, etc. So he portrayed a society of young boys, supposedly unaffected as yet by “society”, and developed what he thought might happen. The book title implies a theological dimension. We are all affected by sin in ourselves.
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Yes. Golding went to lengths to portray that the boys behaved savagely not when influenced by adults, but when the constraints of society are lifted and they are on their own. The indictment of adult influence is only obliquely involved at the very end when the rescuing Captain gazes out to his warship, itself an instrument of human violence.
A great novel, of course, does not constitute a sound argument.
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yes, I remember my English prof using multiple very fictional books as reasons to question our faith. As I think GK Chesterton observed, “Truth is, of course, stranger than fiction; for fiction we create to suit ourselves.”
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