Lord of the Flies,

novel by William Golding, published in 1954. The book explores the dark side of human nature and stresses the importance of reason and intelligence as tools for dealing with the chaos of existence.

In the novel, children are evacuated from Britain because of a nuclear war. One airplane, with adults and prep-school boys as passengers, crashes on an uninhabited island, and all the adults are killed. On the island, as the boys fashion their own society, their attempts at establishing a social order gradually devolve into savagery. Finally abandoning all moral constraints, the boys commit murder before they are rescued and returned to civilization.

"Lord of the Flies" is the translation of the Hebrew name from which that of Beelzebub, the biblical prince of devils, was derived. Lord of the Flies was twice adapted into films, in 1963 and 1990.

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