Examples Of Evil In Lord Of The Flies

Lord of The Flies tells a tale of a large group boys who are not much older than twelve crashing on an island forced to adapt to free will. Considering majority of them are younger they don’t take life seriously yet. In an ambience where anything can happen there is no laws to prevent anything including immoral acts. Evilness is something buried deep within a person until certain circumstances evoke what is natural inclined to do evil. In psychology evil refers to the Lucifer Effect meaning the “ transformation” from good to evil just like Lucifer who originally was an angel disobeyed God, therefore God banished him into hell forever. Evil in the novel slowly lurks around from character to character waiting for the right to present itself and sometimes it's not noticeable because some actions that occurs within the novel wouldn’t be considered as the worst kind of evil.
Gradually the boys realize from the beginning that they need an authority figure, but tensions arise among the main characters as they settle on the island. When Ralph meets Piggy they form an interesting bond that depends on both of them to survive on the island. The first sign of evil is bullying and outcasting individuals. Piggy throughout most of the book isn’t taken

seriously until he actually says something smart that will further increase their chance of survival. Ultimately Piggy is a character that everyone takes advantage of and Piggy doesn’t retaliate though he probably wants to on the inside. The turmoil inside is shown through Ralph when the same thing happens to him when the whole group of boys decide to vote on who should become the leader. Power is what drives both of these boys to their ultimate fates. Power is interwoven with evil because it makes the individual become more aggressive in order to obtain power. Jack resorts to use of multitudes to have his sway in deciding who is better fit for leadership. In a way he becomes the dictator with all his followers consisting of choir boys and other younger boys. The only ones who remain moderately faithful to Ralph is Piggy and Simon. Piggy mainly, because it is through Ralph he is able to speak and Simon may have helped him except he is the only one who notices there is something deeply wrong within each one of them. As the story progresses the boy’s innocence is being striped away slowly till they were capable of killing each other without feeling a slight remorse especially towards the end of the book. Physical violence is a step closer towards complete depravity which Jack faced every time he encountered a swine to kill he depressed the notion of him having to gut the pig which is a task that can make people feel uneasy. Finally gutting the pig was a turning point in his character from being fearful of killing to survive and being able to kill without feeling conscience-stricken for the animal.
Finally a way Zimbardo presents evil is through insanity.

Another piece of literature this is relatable to an extent is Hamlet in which Hamlet goes insane over the loss of his father. In the Lord of The Flies though Ralph, Jack, and Simon go insane. Ralph goes insane for the same reason Jack does. They want the to both be leaders and since, Ralph though has not experienced what Jack has specifically in what it is like to kill, he at first is not willing to conform to the other groups way of savagery. When it came to the point of life and death for him though he refused to let them kill any more. Simon saw what was coming since he was going insane too over how cruel his fellow peers were becoming and continued to

become.