Intertextuality is a relationship between two or more texts that quote from one another, allude to one another, or otherwise connect. In the work of Roland Barthes, intertextuality is the concept that the meaning of an artistic work does not reside in that work, but in the viewers. This means that meaning is created by the responder and is influenced by the context in which it is read/viewed. This is why texts can mean different things to different people living in different times and places.

R. M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island

Read @:

http://www.argo217.k12.il.us/departs/english/blettiere/coral%20island.pdf

Golding subverts the conventions of "Boys Own Adventure" novels like Coral Island. Coral Island is the story of three boys named Ralph, Jack and Peterkin (Peter the Apostle is also called "Simon,").  Ralph is the main character and the narrator. These boys are among a larger group that boarded ship from England.  Thrown overboard in a shipwreck, the three boys find themselves together on a coral island in the South Seas with no adults from their own society.  These boys survive by hunting pig. They deal with real, external beasts: cannibals and pirates. In Coral Island, they convert a pirate, help a native "heathen" to marry the Christian chief whom she loves, and see the "savages" burn their idols and embrace the Gospel, as they leave to sail home. 

The novel is mentioned a few times in LOTF. The boys refer to it in chapter two. The captain at the end says,

"I know. Jolly good show. Like the Coral Island."

If you read the two novels together, you might argue that Ballantyne is optimistic about human nature and Golding is much more pessimistic.

Euripides's The Bacchae

Compare the scene where Simon comes down the mountain into the ritual dance of Jack's boys to the following scene from The Bachae.

In the fifth episode of the play, Pentheus's mother, Agave, and other women are dancing when they see Pentheus in a tree. Pentheus is dressed as a woman, per Dionysus's suggestion.

When Agave sees her son in the tree, she says,

We must take this climbing animal

or he will spread abroad the secrets

of our god-struck dance.

The messenger who relays the story says,

His mother

as the priestess of the bloodbath

was the first to fall upon him.

He snatched the headband off his hair

to let Agave, wretched woman, see

who it was and so not murder him.

He touched her on the cheek and cried:

"Mother, it is I, your child, your Pentheus,

born to you in Echion's house.

Have mercy on me, Mother,

and because of my mistakes do not kill your son--your son."

She was foaming at the mouth.

Her dilated eyeballs rolled.

Her mind was gone--

possessed by Bacchus--she could not hear her son.

Gripping his left hand and forearm

and balancing her foot against the doomed man's ribs,

she dragged his arm off at the shoulder . . .

it was not her strength that did it

but the god's power seething in her hands.

Ino, active on the other side,

was ripping at his flesh;

and Autonoe now and the whole rabid pack were on him.

There was a single, universal howl:

the moans of Pentheus (so long as he had breath)

mixed with their impassioned yells.

One woman carried off an arm,

another a foot, boot and all;

they shredded his ribs--clawed them clean.

Not a finger but it dripped with crimson

as they tossed the flesh of Pentheus like a ball.

His body lies in pieces:

some of it under the gaunt rocks,

some of it in the deep green thickets of the woods--

by no means easy to recover . . .

except for his head,

which his mother, seizing in her hands,

has planted on the thyrsus point. (114 -15)

When Agave returns home she thinks her son's head is a lion's head. And she boasts about the hunt:

Cadmus's daughters

handled this creature after

I did; but only after . . .

Oh what a beautiful hunt!

Come, join in the feast. (117)

The Bacchae. Three Plays of Euripides. Trans. Paul Roche. New York: Norton, 1974.

You should see some similiarities from the passages above to scenes in Lord of the Flies.

The Bible

Simon

Many readers see Simon as a Christ/martyr figure. Many readers see the theme of the book being about the original sin and the fall of man. Lord of the Flies is an English translation of Beelzebub, which often times is taken to mean Satan or a lesser devil. Golding, whatever his belief, used ideas from the Bible. A question you might keep in mind is what does Golding achieve by making references to the Bible?

What's in a name?

Disciple Peter's name, in the Bible, was Simon

In Luke 23:26, we learn that in the story of the crucifixion, a man named Simon carries the cross.

Luke 23:26 And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.

Simon/Jesus Comparisons

They both prophesize

Simon in LOTF, tells Ralph that he will survive: "You will get all right"

Simon does include himself in the prophesy; thus, some infer he has prophesized his own death.

Jesus on several occasions in the Bible predicts his own death.

They both feed people.

Jesus feeds his followers with bread and fish

Matthew 36 And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. 37 And they did all eat, and were filled

Other passages: Mark 6: 34-44; 8: 1-9; John 6: 5-13

Simon feeds the littluns in the novel with fruit

"Simon found for them the fruit they could not reach, pulled off the choicest from up in the foliage, passed them back down to the endless, outstretched hands" (Golding 56).

Both withdraw themselves from society

According to the story, Jesus "withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed" (Luke 5:16).

Simon also retreats into the wildnerness: "Simon turned away from them and went where the just perceptible path led him. Soon high jungle closed in. [. . .] He looked over his shoulder [. . .] and glanced swiftly round to confirm that he was utterly alone" (Golding 56).

Remember that Simon is taunted by the Lord of the Flies.

Crown of thorns

Simon "bashed into a tree" and "a white spot on his forehead turned red and trickled" (Golding 104).

One could interpret the image of blood on the forehead as the imitation of the crown of thorns.

Other allusions:

After Simon dies, the boys remember that Simon said something about "a body on the hill." Simon was referring to the parachutist, but the body on a hill could evoke the image of Jesus on the mountain.

Original sin

Garden of Eden

the beastie is described in the LOTF as a snake, which creates the image of the serpent tempting Eve.

Similarities between the story of Cain and Abel and Jack and Ralph.

Pork in the Old Testament is considered filthy and is forbidden. Jack and his hunters hunt pigs.

Leviticus 11:7 And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you. 8 Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you.

Beelzebub

Look up on Bible Online Matthew 12: 22-28 for a passage that mentions Beelzebub, which translated means Lord of the Flies.

Sources: Olsen, Kirstin. Understanding Lord of the Flies. Westport: Greenwood, 2000.

Other literary works

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Novel shares many of the same themes.

John Dollar by Marianne Wiggins, who was once married to Salman Rushdie.

Described by the author as a "female Lord of the Flies," this book is every bit as chilling and brutal as Golding's.

A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

Here is a bit of the Amazon.com editorial review: "First published in 1929, A High Wind in Jamaica has been compared to Lord of the Flies in its unflinching portrayal of innocence corrupted, but Richard Hughes is the supreme ironist William Golding never was. He possesses the ability to be one moment thoroughly inside a character's head, and the next outside of it altogether, hilariously commenting."

In an interview at Purdue University, Golding acknowledged the similarities between this novel and his. He said he didn't read it until afte he published his novel.

"The Destructors" by Graham Greene

Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien

Here is the opening lines of a review by January 27, 1975 edition Publisher's Weekly: January 27th: "This tale of humanity after atomic war brings to mind "Lord of the Flies" and will have similar icy and compulsive effects on readers."

Movies/TV

Apocalypse Now (movie version of Heart of Darkness)

No Escape

The Beach

Lord of the Flies (1963)

Lord of the Flies (1990)

"I Shot an Arrow into the Air" from The Twilight Zone

"Das Bus" from season 9 of The Simpsons.

Lifeboat (1944)

Castaway

Lost -- With a plane crash, boar hunting, a character named Jack, this show shares thematic ideas with LOTF and makes direct reference to LOTF in Season 2.

Check out this online forum about parallels between LOST and LOTF- http://lost-forum.com/archive/index.php/t-26.html