Abstract

Lord of the Flies is a representative novel of British writer, William Golding. This allegorical novel narrates a story of a group of English boys’ process from civilization to savage, helping each other to killing each other on a desert island . By describing several bunches of innocent boys’ behaviors on a uncharted island, author restores a picture of human beings’ most primitive social and mental developments and illustrates that human being’s all behaviors are products of self internal factors and external environments’ interactions which embodies the law of “survival of the fittest”.
 This thesis adopts “ Natural Selection” of Darwinian evolutionary theory to study Lord of the Flies，revealing the protagonists’ changes under the interaction between humans’ internal psychological mechanisms and external natural environment, warning human being should deal well with evilness and darkness hiding in the deep inner of everyone’s heart and trying to turn it into positive energy for human being’s further development.
This paper mainly contains four parts. The first part is the introduction to William Golding’s life experience and a literature review of Lord of the Flies. The second part is an introduction to the conceptions and principles of Darwinism. The third part is to analyze Lord of the Flies from the perspective of Darwinism. The final part is a conclusion.

Key Words: Lord of the Flies  Natural Selection  Darwinism Survival of the Fittest
 
摘 要

《蝇王》是英国作者威廉•戈尔丁的代表作品。这部寓言式的小说叙述了一群英国男孩在一场核战争中遗落荒岛,并从文明走向野蛮、从相互帮助走向自相残杀的过程。作者通过描写一群天真无邪的孩子在与世隔绝的岛屿的所作所为来还原人类最原始的社会与心理发展过程，体现了人类的一切行为都是在内部因素与外部环境相互作用下的产物，表现了“适者生存”的观点。
本文以达尔文主义为基础，剖析小说《蝇王》所体现的“适者生存”法则，揭示了主人公们在内外因素下的人性转变，从而警示人们要正确认识内心深处利己而黑暗的一面，并把它转化为推动人类积极向上的正能量。
本文主要包括4个部分。第一个部分是有关威廉•戈尔丁的生平介绍以及《蝇王》的简介。第二部分是解释达尔文主义的相关概念与原则。第三部分是从达尔文主义视角研究分析《蝇王》这部作品。最后是结论部分。

关键词：《蝇王》  自然选择论 达尔文主义 适者生存

1 Introduction 
William Golding is a great novelist in English literature, a winner of Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983. Influenced by the impact of the Second World War, William Golding holds a pessimistic view towards human nature and most of his writings reflect this kind of thought as he once said that man produces evil as bee produces honey. The evil of human is a central theme in his many masterpieces and he is famous for his allegorical fictions by widely using symbolism and mythology. The most representative one is Lord of the Flies.