US School don't teach that "Lord of the Flies" is a Deconstruction hitpiece
This is purely anecdotal, but my little small-town middle school never taught me the historical context of LotF. They taught us that LotF is about how "savagery is in every human heart no matter how young" and that's it. William Golding wrote it as a brutal takedown of "The Coral Island" a lesser-known work that has the same plot as LotF (boys stranded on an island with no adults) but it's a happy ending. Anyway, from the 1800s onward, there was a slew of stories about white men getting stranded on islands or in jungles and quickly domesticating the wilderness, subduing the natives, and returning to civilization at the end of the story no worse for a wear and with a fantastic story to tell. In this unfamiliar wilderness, they easily survive the wild animals, hunt for food, and build a nice little hut (bonus points if the natives start worshipping the white man or give him a cool nickname after besting them). This genre was very pro-imperialism, pro-colonialism, and stressed how superior the white man was-- no surprise since this was the 19th century aka "age of imperialism." The genre, dubbed "Robinsonade" after Robsinson Carusoe, grew to encompass child protagonists, typically prepubescent or pubescent boys who got shipwrecked and had a jolly adventure until help arrived. Anyway, I guess Golding got fed up with how this genre made being marooned into a sweet little adventure so he wrote "Lord of the Flies" where, instead of banding together to build grass huts and becoming professional outdoorsmen, the boys devolve into two cliques, the savage clique who want to stay on the island and the few clinging to order until help arrives. These British boys aren't natural survivalists keeping a "stiff upper lip." They're scared, isolated kids descending into brutality and paranoia. At the end of the book, an adult comes for them and all the surviving kids break down in tears, realizing how bestial they became without supervision.
