Good vs. Evil in William Golding´s Lord of the Flies

725 Words2 Pages

It seems as though there is so much more evil than good in the world today. We hear of war and fighting 24/7 but we rarely hear about the good things that happen. Everyone is born with both good and bad within them. We, as humans, must choose which one we want to be. In The Lord of the Flies, Ralph is good while Jack is evil. Ralph represents the good side of us while Jack represents the evil side. Although sometimes it is easier to be evil, it pays off to be good. The novel is a perfect example of how all people are born with both sides. At the beginning, the boys choose the good side, with morals and civilization. But as the story moves on, the boys find it more exciting to be on the bad side. It shows that all the boys are torn between good and bad and there is a very thin line that separates both. We realize that people are born inherently good and bad because in life there are always right and wrong choices, children are born good but are easily influenced to do bad, and it is always harder to do what is right than what is wrong.
“The loss of innocence for which Ralph weeps at the novel's close is not, however, a matter of transformation from childish goodness to adolescent depravity, is not a growing into wickedness. It is rather the coming of an awareness of darkness, of the evil in man's heart that was present in the children all along,” (Boyd). At the end of the novel, Ralph cries for a few reasons. He cries because he has lost his friend Piggy. He also cries because he has lost his innocence. He now realizes that there is evil in every man.
Before Ralph ended up on this island, he thought everyone was good, and bad was just a foreign concept. But now he sees that there is evil even within himself. While him and the re...

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...will be. Why we choose who we are is a question that may never be answered. Maybe it is society as the book seems to state or maybe it is our own conscience. All human beings are 100% good and 100% bad but not all human beings have the strength to go against the popular vote and be their own person.

Works Cited
Boyd, S. J. "The Nature of the Beast: Lord of the Flies." Bloom's Literature. Facts On lllllFile, Inc. Web. 16 Mar. 2014 lllll.
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: The Berkley lllllPublishing Group, 1954
Neighbors, Ryan. "individual and society in Lord of the Flies." Bloom's Literature. Facts lllllOn File, Inc. Web. 16 Mar. 2014 lllll.

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