Human Nature In Lord Of The Flies Quote Analysis

“The theme [of Lord of the Flies] is an attempt to trace the defects of human society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable." (William Golding). This Quote by William Golding wonderfully illustrates his book’s (Lord of the Flies) attempt to show that humans cannot live in a civilized manner due to individual human nature. This human nature is portrayed as savagery and barbarism in the book. Just think about it, anybody on this planet would do whatever they want if nobody is watching them even if it is wrong. This is exactly what Golding means when he says that society’s defects

As Golding mentions in his quote, “the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual”. That is why Jack’s defects of savage like immaturity are the reasons for the barbaric way of life of the boys at the end of the story (because he is the main leader at that point). For Instance when Jack is supposed to keep a signal fire going (which he did not) and a ship passed by, Ralph angrily told Jack that he “let the fire out”. However Jack is too happy about killing his first pig that he is “vaguely irritated by this irrelevance but too happy to let it worry him”. Then he goes on “proudly” saying “I cut the Pig’s throat…You should have seen it!”(73). As a result, it can be observed that one of Jack’s defects is his disregard for important matters such as creating shelters and (in this case) being rescued. Rather he is too selfish, and is more concerned with things that he finds of relevance, such as having fun by killing animals. This lust for hunting and killing later becomes a defect of society when Jack becomes the main leader. This is so because in Jack’s rule hunting and killing is something common and normal, to the extent that the boys killed a farrowing sow without any sympathetic concern for their dreadful action. Moreover this lead to the pretend killing of Robert in which even Ralph joined in because “The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering” (104), and this eventually lead to the death of Simon (the most innocent boy on the island) where they “struck, bit, [and] tore” (169) him apart. The fact that Jack’s primitive nature and lust for hunting and killing pigs, ended up killing the most innocent character, and causing his enemy leader to partly join in his savage lifestyle, shows that the defects of society really do depend on the defects of the