LA CRISI DUE

CRISIS OF THE VALUE OF COLONIALISM IN “LORD OF THE FLIES”


In the Victorian period the British Empire occupied one fifth of the earth. The british, according to Darwin’s theories and feeling superior, had not simply the right, but even the duty to expand, rule peoples considered incapable of good self-government, educate them on science and technology and spread Christianity. The novels in which is shown this colonialist attitude are Ballantyne’s “The coral island” and Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe”, where the adventures of English young boys in the first and of a trader in the second, both set on desert islands, confirms the validity and power of their culture. But after the Second World War, when everyone had seen what men can do to other men, there is the final crisis of the value of colonialism. In “Lord of the flies” William Golding reverses the conventions of Defoe’s and Ballantyne’s novels in order to express scepticism about human nature and civilization. A group of English young boys landed on an island, rather than triumphing over cannibals, themselves become terrifying savages, the ideal of teamwork is replaced by bullying, tyranny and violence, the confidence in rationality and practically is swallowed up in primeval fear and primitive superstition. So the boys assume the role played by the savages in “Robinson Crusoe” and “The Coral Island” and evil, rather than being embodied in an “inferior” culture, comes from the young products of English civilization, the “most advanced” in the world.