The setting is essential to the theme of the darkness of man’s heart, in William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies. The tragic and provocative tale is set somewhere on a tropical island where a group of British boys is stranded after a plane crash, in which no “grown-ups” survive. A sense of timelessness is developed in the novel making the era quite irrelevant. It is a place rather than a time that is important in the novel. The dark, unknown island generates a sense of fear in the boys, which gradually removes their veneer of civilization to an unexpected extent, revealing the darkness of man’s heart.
Three specific examples of how setting influenced the actions and attitudes of the characters are: The isolation from a civilized world, the mysteries of an unfamiliar place, and different social types being forced to live with one another.