In literature, themes help the reader understand the story's underlying message. The rich plotline in William Golding's classic novel, Lord of the Flies, has many pervasive themes. Inspired by his participation in World War II, Golding wrote this novel to demonstrate his feelings of the true nature of humans. The story begins with a boy called Piggy emerging from a plane crash on an island in the midst of war. He meets another boy, Ralph, who is older and more headstrong than him. Ralph finds a conch shell and blows it, which summons many other boys who survived the crash. The boys quickly realize they are alone without adult supervision on the island and vote on a chief to lead them. Ralph is voted chief over another boy named Jack, a leader of a choir of boys. Jack and his choir are designated as the hunters, leading to Jack becoming obsessed with killing a pig.
During an assembly, one of the littluns, a term used for the younger boys, gets the conch and asks what they will do about the beastie, a snake-like creature he saw in the woods. Ralph brushes it off by saying it doesn't exist, but Jack says he and the choir will look out for it on their hunts. Ralph tries to maintain order, while Jack continues to find ways to kill a pig. These goals are at odds when Jack hunts instead of maintaining their signal fire, causing a passing ship not to know they are on the island.
A parachuter lands dead on the island, which Sam and Eric find and believe is the beastie. Ralph and some of the older boys go looking for it but don't find it. After hunting as a group, chanting and dancing, Ralph, Jack, and Simon finally come across the parachutist and run in fear. Jack wants everyone to vote out Ralph as chief, but they don't, so he invites the boys to join him in a new group focused on hunting. Jack and Roger put a dead pig's head on a stake and steal fire from the group that remained with Ralph.
Simon goes out by himself and sees the pig head, then hallucinates that it talks to him, telling him it is the lord of the flies before he passes out. Simon wakes up and then goes and finds the parachutist, only to discover it is not a beastie at all.
At a feast Jack has, he lets Ralph and Piggy eat with them and makes everyone do his hunting dance while yelling a cryptic chant. When Simon tells the boys that there is no beastie, the boys all kill him. The next day, Piggy, Ralph, Sam, and Eric try to distance themselves from the horrible act that everyone participated in.
With most of the boys joining him, Jack continues with their more savage tribe causing violence to erupt between them and the more civilized group led by Ralph. Piggy brings the conch and tries to reason with the fighting boys during a confrontation, but Roger drops a large rock killing him and breaking the conch. Ralph gets away, and Jack's tribe decides to light a huge fire to smoke him out of hiding. As the whole island becomes engulfed in flames, Ralph runs out to the beach to find a Navy officer who has come to see what all the smoke was about. The boys all start to cry.
The themes of this novel include civilization, rules, and order; innocence lost; mob mentality; knowledge; and nature.