Golding based this novel on two personal experiences: his time teaching at boys' public schools and his experiences in World War II. He had read books like "Coral Island" which showed young boys getting stranded on desert islands and living in perfect Utopia. He wanted to write about what he thought would really happen in this situation.
The book portrays their descent into savagery. Left to themselves, far from modern civilisation, the well-educated children revert to a primitive state.
The central theme is the conflicting human impulses toward civilization living by rules, peacefully and in harmony and toward the will to power. Themes include the tension between groupthink and individuality, between rational and emotional reactions, and between morality and immorality. How these play out is the story of Lord of the Flies.
A group of boys of different ages, from different schools and backgrounds, are stranded on an island after their plane is brought down. The country they came from has been hit with a atom bomb and all the adults on their plane have died. There is no one else on the island and no one knows where they are. On Piggy's advice, Ralph blows a conch shell to gather the boys from across the island to a meeting. There they are introduced to Merridew (Jack) who is head of the Choir and various other characters.
A vote is called for leader, which is won by Ralph. He gives the task of registering the boys to Piggy, while he, Jack and Simon (a member of the choir) go to explore the island. They discover that they are truly alone on the island and that it is an island. On the way back they walk through a the forest and come across a pig. Jack pulls out a knife and makes to kill it, but is unable to. He swears to kill the next one he finds.
The three return to the beach where the first meeting was held and discover that Piggy was unable to take the register. During a meeting concerns are raised by one of the younger children about a "beastie" or "snake-thing". Ralph and the other older boys are quick to dismiss this theory. All the same, fear from some of the younger boys spreads. Ralph suggests that they build a signal fire; the group is instantly excited by this idea and rush to the top of the mountain to pile wood. They discover they have no way of igniting it, then Piggy arrives with the conch (essential for meetings, whoever has the conch talks). They use his glasses to start a fire which burns well, then ignites a large portion of forest, possibly killing a young child.
Jack and half of his choir hunt while the other half is assigned to tending the signal fire. Jack becomes obsessed with the idea of a kill while Ralph is still more interested in building shelters (with Simon's help) and escaping the island, something Jack does not seem bothered about anymore. He wants to kill a pig.
Jack eventually gets angry with Ralph and goes and forms his own tribe. They steal piggy's glasses so they can start a fire. Simon is killed by the boys because they thought he was the beast. Only Ralph, Piggy and Sam and Eric are left in the original tribe. They go to the top of the mountain where Jack's tribe are. Jack and Ralph fight and Roger sends a boulder tumbling down that narrowly misses Ralph but kills Piggy and breaks the Conch. Sam and Eric are taken by Jack's tribe and Ralph runs away. Ralph goes up to the mountain again to see Sam and Eric and they tell him that Jack plans on hunting him down. He goes and hides but is soon found by the tribe. A fire is created to smoke him out. He runs for it down onto the beach being chased by the tribe holding spears. Ralph runs into a navy officer who saw the smoke from the fire and has come to rescue them. It is ironic because Jack only wanted to hunt for food and not bother keeping the fire going but he ends up starting the fire that gets them rescued...
Child support
Child support is continued payment performed by a parent for the financial benefits of children following marital separations, divorces or ends of civil unions. Child maintenance is paid either directly or indirect by obligors toward an obligee for care and support of children from terminated marriages, civil unions or other relationships. The obligor is the non-custodial parent; the obligee is either the custodial parent, a caregiver, a guardian or the state.
Support orders end based on local laws and the facts of each case. Support orders usually end when the child reaches the age of majority. (This can be an age from 16 to 21 (New York State) or graduates from high school.) Some countries and states have laws that make support continue past the age of majority if the child is enrolled as a full-time, degree-seeking post-secondary student. If the obligor owes back child support, the payments must continue until the debt is satisfied, regardless of the age of the child.
Several factors can end a support order for a child under the age of majority. These include the child's marriage, legal emancipation or death.
Emperor Ninmyō
Before he became the monarch, this prince's personal name ("imina") was .
Ninmyō was the second son of Emperor Saga and the Empress Tachibana no Kachiko.
Ninmyō had nine Empresses, Imperial consorts, and concubines ("kōi"); and he had 24 Imperial sons and daughters.
Ninmyō was Crown Prince for 10 years.
Emperor Ninmyō is traditionally venerated at his tomb; the Imperial Household Agency designates , in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, as the location of Ninmyō's mausoleum.
Ninmyō was sometimes posthumously referred to as "the Emperor of Fukakusa," because that was the location of his tomb.
The years of Ninmyō's reign are identified by more than one era name ("nengō").
Natural deduction
Natural deduction is a branch of mathematical logic developed in Poland in the 1920s and 30s. It is meant to express inference rules closely related to the "natural" way of reasoning.
Spurred on by a series of seminars in Poland in 1926 by Łukasiewicz that advocated a more natural treatment of logic, Jaśkowski made the earliest attempts at defining a more natural deduction. In 1929 he first suggested in 1929 using a diagrammatic notation, and later updated his proposal in papers in 1934 and 1935.
John McCarthy
John McCarthy (1927-2011) was an American scientist. He is mostly known for the work he did in the field of logic.
McCarthy was the first to use the term artificial intelligence, in an article he wrote in 1955. He invented LISP to be able to do logic programming, in 1958. This makes LISP the second-oldest high-level programming language that is still in use; FORTRAN is older. McCarthy studied mathematics. He invented Garbage collection to solve some of the problems LISP had. McCarthy's work received many awards, the Turing Award for his work on Artificial Intelligence, in 1971, or the National Medal of Science in 2003 are among them.
Hurricane Karl (2010)
Hurricane Karl was the fifth and final major hurricane of 2010's Atlantic hurricane season. It became the most damaging hurricane to ever impact the Mexican state of Veracruz. As of September 23, 22 people have been confirmed killed, most of which were in the state of Veracruz. Preliminary losses from the storm are estimated at 70 billion MXN ($5.6 billion USD). Despite the destruction, the name Karl was not retired.
Robert Pierpoint
Robert Pierpoint (May 16, 1925 – October 22, 2011) was an American broadcast journalist who worked for CBS.
He was born in Redondo Beach, California. Pierpoint served in the United States Navy during World War II. In 1948, he graduated from University of Redlands. Pierpoint covered the Korean War. He appeared on the first edition of "See It Now" in 1951. He also covered the State Department for CBS. He was often on Charles Kuralt's "Sunday Morning" broadcasts until his retirement.