"Lord of the Flies" is not satire as most people imagine satire, as Saturday Night Live political commentary; there's not a laugh or political reference in the book. John Dryden, in his 1684 essay "Discourse on Satire" (see References 2), made the distinction between Horatian -- gentle, laughable, Comedy Central-style -- satire and Juvenalian -- harsh, grotesque, ironic -- satire. "Lord of the Flies," with its intense savagery and the rapid degeneration of its ersatz society, falls into the second category.
The strongest sociopolitical element Golding satirizes is the need for civilization against the need for power. At the novel's beginning, the boys organize into two parties for hunting and maintenance. They use the glasses of one boy, Piggy, for fire, a conch shell for democratic debate and a slaughtered pig for food. By novel's end, dead Piggy's glasses are shattered, the shell is an empty symbol of group-think, the parties are at war and the pig's head is a demon whispering destruction.
The narrative line is soaked in satiric irony and reversal. The boys' plane is evacuating them from a war zone; it crashes on the island, where the boys begin a war. They are members of an organized choir; by the end, they are shrieking for bloody death. The wisest, Piggy, is murdered; the most impulsive, Jack, is held up as a Stalinesque charismatic, leading followers to cannibalism. Ralph, their elected chief, becomes the prey they all hunt.
The Juvenalian satirical seal is set at the end: the boys are rescued, but it's not a happy ending, since they are now savage murderers. The rescuing officer, untouched by their insanity, makes the upper-class remark that British boys "would have put up a better show." Ralph's only answer to this grotesque comment is to dissolve in tears, the only proper response to satire that provokes no laughter.