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Stream of Consciousness
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
This short novel seems relatively straightforward stylistically: the third-person narrating voice explains the events with some distance, eloquently but neutrally. Readers mostly only know information that the boys know and only see things the boys see or remember. Very occasional flashbacks occur, but mainly the story progresses chronologically.
While the novel contains nothing strictly supernatural, the boys' fear and the death and violence that surround them make the story feel ghostly. The unlikely events of the story and Golding's use of symbolism through also make it read more like a parable or an allegory, especially because Golding has explicitly said the book is meant to criticize the British "civilizing" their colonies.
Also worth noting are Golding's many detailed and beautiful descriptions of the island on which the boys are stranded. Often, this figurative language is natural: the boys are compared to animals, for instance, or one natural force such as fire is compared to another, such as water. Golding's island imagery makes the setting vivid in the reader's mind, and it also sets the tone and mood of the novel. Moreover, the book contains many metaphors and similes that make the island sound violent and inhospitable, or strange and ghostly.
Related Themes:
