One theme in Lord of the Flies is the question of what it means to be part of a society or to be civilized. The wild, unfamiliar, setting presents challenges to the boys' understanding of societal expectations and leads them to act in ways that would have been impossible or unacceptable in their home environment.
One element of the setting that influenced the boys' behavior is the isolation of the island on which they land. After their plane crashes, they find themselves without the supervision of adults or the comforts of home. While the older boys attempt to replicate some of the social structures they are familiar with by organizing a hunting party and assigning boys to make and watch the signal fire, they resort to violence and harsh treatment of weaker boys. Without the guidance of adults or the oversight of a larger community with laws and consequences, the boys' activities quickly get out of hand. An example is when their fire burns out of control and the causes a blaze in the forest, in which one of the younger boys disappears.
The wildness of the setting, an uninhabited island, also contributes to the exploration of what what it means to be civilized. Events that would be nearly unthinkable in the populated, controlled, setting where they came from become accepted in the wild setting of the island. In their excitement over the wild sow that Jack's hunting party has caught and killed, the hunting party fails to recognize Simon coming out of the jungle and kills him. In a wild world where they must kill to survive, the boys lose perspective and are unable to figure out where to draw the line between survival and aggression.
While the boys are alone on the island, they are also not completely isolated from the world at large, a point that is brought home when a soldier escaping from an airplane battle over the island lands, dead, by their signal fire. Although the reader may be horrified by the violent actions of the boys, this element of the setting, its proximity to the war raging in the "civilized" world nearby, highlights the parallels between the violence perpetuated among the boys on the island and the violence of the war the adults are engaged in back in civilization.
The setting of The Lord of the Flies makes it possible for the reader to explore the themes of what it means to be civilized by removing a group of boys from the constraints of societal expectations as well as the supports of their community. By placing the boys in a wild, uninhabited place just out of reach of adults and their war, William Golding leads readers to question what it means to be part of a civilization.
One of the themes of the book is savagery vs. civilization. The boys have been raised within a civilization. There are rules and order that govern their lives, and the boys act accordingly within that structure in order to succeed; however, that society governed by civilized people is removed by setting the story on a deserted island. There are no people on the island; therefore, there's no society, civilization, no rules, no order, etc. The boys are free to set up their own governing body, and they attempt to mimic what they know. Unfortunately, with no additional societal support to help enforce civility, savagery begins to take over. The boys are forced in some ways to behave like savages. They are forced to hunt and scavenge for food, but their savagery escalates. The boys turn their savagery and blood lust toward each other. Had the plane crashed outside some small rural town, I do not believe the boys would have changed so drastically. The setting helps readers believe in the character changes.
I think another theme that the novel explores is isolation. While the group of boys is somewhat large, the group itself is isolated from any external influences. The setting is an island that doesn't see a lot of passing traffic, and that allows Golding to keep the boys on the island for quite some time. It's never clear exactly how long the boys are on the island, but we are told about hair lengths becoming much longer and clothes being very tattered. The isolation creates changes in the boys. They lose their innocence much sooner because of their isolation and turn toward savagery.
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