Becoming Savage In Lord Of The Flies

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Humans for as long as we know have developed tremendously from being savage to converting to rules and order. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a group of young orderly British boys survive a plane crash and end up on a stranded island. These boys start to form their own rules and ways to survive, but as they spend more time on the island they begin to fall apart and turn into savages. The boys ended up becoming savage due to many biological factors in their growth. A factor that can play into turning savage is the fact that the boys are young and their minds have not yet fully developed. A psychologist researched how the teenage brain makes decisions and what causes them. She states that, “Although teens can make good decisions, ‘In …show more content…

If it is scientifically proven that the adolescent brain is bound to make mistakes in search of a reward, then it can all go back to why the boys went wild. They would not be able to help it due to their biology. Ralph, one of the boys on the island, goes through so many emotions when they finally get rescued. He begins to sob violently, and as he is doing so, Golding explains, “And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart,” (Golding 285). Even though the boys have made decisions that were unthinkable, it all comes to the fact that they are just kids who have not fully matured and do not know how to think for themselves. Thus, coming back to how they are going savage is a cause of their development and urge to explore and make bad choices. Some may say that the environment and situations of a place can make somebody go savage, and while that is true, more pieces of evidence go back to the biological factors. For example, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, explains how children are more vulnerable to make poor decisions, “‘but not the reason to control the impulse’” (Qtd. in

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