How do you account for the enormous appeal of [Lord of the Flies], especially to adolescents and college-age students?… It enables meaningful questioning about the nature of man, the aims of society, the structure of the social order…. Golding … appeals to students as a spokesman of their generation and of the situation in which they find themselves…. The book helps to alleviate—vicariously—feelings of guilt and fear which students have individually felt unique to themselves…. Just as young people struggle to overcome feelings of fear of the unknown, of the future, and even of themselves, so they see the working out of these fears by the protagonists of the novel…. Since high school students are both older than the protagonists of the novel, yet younger than adults, they can entertain a degree of objectivity and even superiority to other readers in evaluating the view of man and society presented…. [Young] people appreciate that Golding tells the truth without excuses, that he reminds them of extremes which they would want to avoid in their own lives…. It is compact, yet rich in sense impression, characterization, and imaginative appeal. This work can delight with its inventiveness and vitality, even while its themes and philosophy discomfit. Students are also persuaded that children are capable of acting as Golding suggests and appreciate the novel's fusion of realism and allegory. (pp. 569-70)
Like a Gulliver's Travels, it can both entertain and appeal. (p. 571)
Gladys Veidemanis, "'Lord of the Flies' in the Classroom—No Passing Fad," in English Journal (copyright © 1964 by the National Council of Teachers of English; reprinted by permission of the publisher and the author), Vol. 53, No. 8, November, 1964, pp. 569-74.
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