Deterioration In Lord Of The Flies Essay

805 Words2 Pages

The allegorical novel, Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, follows a group of young boys stranded on a desolate island without adult supervision after their plane “was attacked” (8). As the once “understandable and lawful world, was slipping away” (91), among the boys emerges, Roger, the one “whom no one knew, who kept to himself” (22) kept to himself. Amidst a “civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins” (62) Roger undergoes a disturbing transformation from a somewhat civil boy to a ruthless savage as tensions escalate, and he begins to unleash a wave of brutality upon his fellow survivors, culminating in a shocking display of violence that rocks the fragile community to its core. Through Roger's detrimental and sinister …show more content…

Not long after the hunters had acquired “Piggy’s broken glasses” (168), a symbol of intellect and rationality, Piggy and Ralph called an “assembly” (175) to discuss “about the fire. and about Piggy’s specs” (176) that ended with an outburst of resistance from the hunters. Golding illustrates the growing selfishness and unwillingness to prioritize their immediate desires over the common good, furthering the idea that lack of urbanity leads to the unraveling of cultural standards and the erosion of moral values. Through the chaos of the bickering, Roger, “with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever” (180), sent a “jolt in the earth” (181) and a rock struck Piggy, someone whom Roger sees as a “bag of fat” (180). This dehumanizes and reduces Piggy to his physical attributes, demonstrating the degrading behavior that depicts the erosion of social …show more content…

Through Roger's gradual descent into savagery, Golding highlights the fragility of human morality and the ease with which it can be corrupted in the absence of societal constraints, thereby reinforcing the novel's theme of the loss of humanity and civility. As a “quiet terror” (182) falls over the island, Roger’s “dark face” (pdf) “weild[s] a nameless authority” (183), in the relentless pursuit of Ralph as he holds a “sharpened stick at both ends” (190) that serves as the definitive manifestation of his descent into savagery and its consequences. As Ralph becomes the last vestige of social order on the island, Roger “carrie[s] death in his hands” (196) and sees him as a target to be

Open Document