Actually, the events and horrors he witnessed while serving in World War II are most likely to have inspired William Golding in writing Lord of the Flies. British poet and novelist William Golding (1911-1993) was a naval officer during World War II, and that experience made him seeing the world with new, more realistic, skeptical and disenchanted, eyes. He wrote his classical novel undoubtedly influenced by what he had witnessed during his wartime service. Lord of the Flies is a very somber and bitter novel, which portrays masterfully how oppressive and cruel humans can be, and how war and conflict turn people, even children, into ruthless and pitiless creatures.