Governance and Leadership: A Critical Reading of William Golding's Lord of the Flies

Abstract

The pursuit of power originated in the beginnings of human history, manifesting in various forms and motivations, starting from individual desires for control and dominance and reaching to the expansionist ambitions of nations. The struggle for power has shaped societies and fuelled conflicts, including major wars like World War I and II. Driven by this notion, this paper attempted to render a critical reading of William Golding's novel, "Lord of the Flies" regarding the struggle for power and the forms of governance and leadership in society within the narrative text that finally resulted in chaos and savagery. This study aimed at investigating the struggle for power and determining the forms of governance and leadership in this literary work. As analytical approaches, Marxist literary criticism and the notion of binarism have been adopted to analyse the conceptual framework of this study. The findings of this paper asserted that the power struggle leads to a plunge into chaos and cruelty, exposed two forms of governance and leadership represented by democracy and dictatorship, and the merits, demerits, and results of each form, and how a corrupt regime, governance, and leadership can ruin society. The final conclusion of this study is that Golding's novel presents a dark view of human nature and its tendency to descend into savagery in the absence of organised governance and wise leadership. The significance of this study lies in providing better comprehension of the power struggle and the forms of governance and leadership within the narrative text. It contributes to enriching the literature in this novel, and the field of political English novels.