How World War II Inspired ‘Lord of the Flies’

William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies has inspired a number of intriguing interpretations since its publication in 1954. Chief among them is that when entrusted to their own devices, boys innately descend into chaos and brutality. But such a reading oversimplifies the author’s most significant influences on his work: World War II and British postcolonialism. 

Golding’s experiences as an ordinary seamen and lieutenant during the war informed his writing. He reflected on traveling over the English Channel on the way to the D-Day landings in a 1961 essay for Holiday magazine. “We turned southeast and steamed at full speed ahead all night over jet black waves that were showered with sparks of phosphorescence and possibly loaded with mines,” he wrote. “I stood there all night catching up and felt history in my hands as hard and as heavy as a brick.” He would later describe the war as a “turning point” in his understanding of human nature.

Lord of the Flies follows a group of British schoolboys stranded on an island who attempt to govern themselves but gradually descend into violence and disorder. The novel makes its World War II connection particularly clear in its final moments when a British naval officer arrives on the island, just as the boys have ravaged it. The officer gazes at blazing fires, the boys’ tattered clothes and painted faces and says incredulously, “I should have thought that a pack of British boys—you’re all British, aren’t you?—would have been able to put up a better show than that.”

Using his own experiences in the war and as a teacher of elite British schoolboys, Golding reflects a reality that the actions of these kids are no better or worse than the imperialistic cruelties of their adult counterparts—including that officer.

“Golding’s experiences in the British Navy in World War II, where he sees how much destruction and death can be created by modern technology, regardless of who the good guys and bad guys are or the merits of defeating fascism—that’s all in the backdrop of the novel,” says Steve Trout, an English professor at the University of Alabama.

When asked why he wrote Lord of the Flies, Golding once said: “It was simply what seemed sensible for me to write after the war when everyone was thanking God they weren’t Nazis. I’d seen enough to realize that every single one of us could be Nazis.”

As the only survivors of a plane that crash lands amid nuclear wartime evacuation, the boys in Lord of the Flies aim to reproduce a familiar civilization; beginning with electing a leader (Ralph) based on their understanding of fairness. But that creates an intense rift between Ralph and Jack, who had vied for the position and lost. Jack claims a dissenting “tribe” among the group that gradually assumes a more boorish stance than Ralph and his ally, Piggy. 

While the story sets up a clash between the boys who are seemingly good and seemingly bad, like the sides understood in World War II, Golding complicates that dynamic—from their actions down to the way they talk to each other. For instance, in an early edition of the novel, Piggy uses the N-word to describe the behavior of Jack’s group. That was changed to “savages” in other editions, which is used in both the 1963 film and the 2026 Netflix series adaptation produced by the BBC. 

“The N-word in the U.K. edition [of the novel] is still there but is now blanked out,” explains Nicola Presley, a senior lecturer of English literature at Bath Spa University and the publicity and media manager for William Golding Limited. “That was the decision taken by the family.”

Although she thinks the word should have been replaced entirely, Presley acknowledges Golding’s decision to include it reflects how the novel paints none of the boys as benign. Rather, they’re byproducts of a colonial British Empire that positions itself as superior, civilized and heroic. 

“Which again takes us back to the war, because the U.K. is on the good side against the evil Nazis, but they’d spent 300 years destroying countries, stealing people,” Presley says. “The idea of savages—people who aren’t quite British enough. Where’s the difference between savages?”

The boys’ actions and dialogue reflect an antagonistic, authoritarian understanding of survival and progress. The story details the charismatic Jack convincing the group that there’s a dangerous “beast” on the island from which they must defend themselves, escalating into violence against one another. It mirrors how real-world leaders like Hitler have used fear to consolidate power.

“Jack has many of the qualities of a Mussolini or a Hitler or a Stalin,” Trout says. “And so you can see all of these fascist leaders, they start out in democratic forms of government, and then they just decide the rules are for other people at some point.”

That’s partly why the novel has remained on school curricula all these decades and why Hollywood continues to return to the story. When its first film adaptation was released in 1963, nearly 20 years after World War II, it arrived in the shadow of the Cold War, as fears of a third world war loomed large. Since then, each adaptation tends to reflect the anxieties of its era, from nuclear war to modern political polarization.

“There were reasons to fight against fascism in the Second World War,” says Trout. “But World War II ends in a mushroom cloud, and it just promises more of the same, unless rationality will reign.”

When Golding was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Literature, the committee praised his work for “illuminating the human condition through the perspicuity of his realistic narrative and his use of universal myth.” To that end, Golding’s dystopian story raises questions that are just as urgent today, including the threat of a new nuclear arms race and questions of imperialism.

“So I guess maybe sadly, this is why Lord of the Flies is never going to lose its relevance,” Trout says. “Because just when we think that the world might be becoming a little more rational, we’re right back in it.”