Recommendations
Books Like Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Golding fiction, British allegorical novels, and books about what happens to civilization under pressure
If Lord of the Flies disturbed you with its argument that the beast is within us and its account of children's swift descent into savagery, these eight works share its allegorical mode, its pessimistic view of human nature, and its sense that the social order is more fragile than we like to believe.
- 1
Buy on AmazonHeart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad
Conrad's 1899 novella — Golding's primary precedent; the same argument that civilization is a thin veneer over savagery, demonstrated through Kurtz's descent in the Congo; Golding's island is Conrad's jungle.
- 2
Buy on AmazonThe Inheritors
by William Golding
Golding's 1955 second novel — the extinction of the Neanderthals by homo sapiens told from the Neanderthals' perspective; the same bleak view of human nature as Lord of the Flies, in a prehistoric setting.
- 3Buy on Amazon
The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
McCarthy's 2006 post-apocalyptic novel of a father and son — the same question about what survives when civilization is stripped away, and whether the answer is worth surviving for.
- 4Buy on Amazon
The Coral Island
by R.M. Ballantyne
Ballantyne's 1858 Victorian novel of shipwrecked English boys who behave nobly — the book Golding was arguing against; reading it alongside Lord of the Flies reveals the exact nature of Golding's counter-argument.
- 5
Buy on AmazonBattle Royale
by Koushun Takami
Takami's 1999 Japanese novel of students forced to kill each other by the government — Lord of the Flies's scenario extended to its adult-controlled conclusion; the most direct literary descendant.
- 6
Buy on AmazonDarkness at Noon
by Arthur Koestler
Koestler's 1940 novel of a man broken by the system he helped build — the same pessimism about human nature applied to political idealism; what Lord of the Flies suggests about primitive instinct, Darkness at Noon demonstrates about political reason.
- 7Buy on Amazon
The Pincher Martin
by William Golding
Golding's 1956 third novel — a naval officer clinging to a rock after his ship is torpedoed; the same theological pessimism about human nature in a survival story that is also an argument about the self.
- 8Buy on Amazon
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by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Zamyatin's 1924 dystopian novel — the organized, totalitarian response to the chaos of Lord of the Flies; both ask whether human beings can be trusted with freedom.
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