Thanks for the answers. I know that Pilgrim's Progress, for instance, was an intentional allegory. I also know that J.R. Tolkien balked at the attempts made to categorize his work as allegorical. Golding's work seems to fall somewhere between the two in terms of obvious allegorical intention.
To me Golding seems pushing less of a moral lesson and more of an idea, as one of the people responded has stated. I can't see how a moral lesson can be made about the rules breaking down when there is no societal structure or a weak government. There's no way for people to behave NOT to have those things happen. No amount of "better behavior"--altruism, hard work, honesty, etc. will prevent a plane from crashing or a weak government from being overthrown. To me it seems like Golding is trying to get people to weigh and consider certain ideas, and possibly extrapolate those ideas to the world around them at that particular time in history.
Sorry if these seem like strange and rudimentary questions for a English teacher-to-be to be asking, but I cannot remember reading Lord of the Flies the first time around, and it's what is being read in a class I'm observing as well as several classes that I've been a substitute teacher in. I want to have it down, and sooner than later at that.
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