Abstract: Lord of the Flies is William Golding’s first novel and also has been regarded as his best. When it first appeared in 1954, both critics and book-reviewers greatly welcomed it as a sensation in literature. Compared with traditional desert island literature, Golding changes the traditional pattern that previous desert island becomes Eden-like paradise and first describes the evil human nature. And this thesis analyzes the characteristics of the traditional desert island literature theme by taking The Tempest, Robinson Crusoe and The Coral Island as examples, and the subversion of the theme in Lord of the Flies. This paper aims to explore the admonitory significance by illustrating how traditional desert island literature is subverted. The penetrating warnings of Lord of the Flies firstly lies in the hope that the westerners should be aware of the spiritual crisis and of which the social problems come; secondly it lies in the expectation that the westerners can seek solutions from the tradition so as to extricate themselves from the crisis. 

Key words: traditional desert island literature; evil human nature; subversion

CONTENTS

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction1

1.1 Introduction to William Golding and Lord of the Flies

  1.2 Research Condition of Lord of the Flies

  1.3 Introduction to Traditional Desert Island Literature

2. The subversions to the Desert Island Literature in the Novel.5                  

2.1 The Subversions to the theme

    2.1.1The Subversion to Good Human Nature

2.1.2 The Subversion to Traditional Religion 

2.1.3 The Subversion to Politics

2.1.4 The Subversion to Technology 

2.2 The Subversions to the Characterization

  2.2.1 Change to the Male Characters

  2.2.2 Change to the Absence of women

3. Purposes and Significances of the Subversions in Lord of the Flies12

4. Conclusion13

Bibliography..15

Acknowledgements.16