Human Nature In Lord Of The Flies Quote Analysis

In the book, Lord of The Flies by William Golding, human nature is very heavily observed and scrutinized. The way it is interpreted becomes evil and very literally symbolized by the name of the novel, a nickname for the Satan. Satan is an absolute evil in the religion of Christianity. However, this would be implying that the events in the book, which we perceive as evil and immorality, were unnatural. In reality, the behaviour noted in the book is not evil or unjust, because absolute morality is a construct of humanity and nothing more. The rules and morality we bind ourselves to are social constructs used to stabilize modern civilization. Without them we collapse to primitive times and become nothing more than apes and monkeys; “savages”.

Quoting a speaker that came to our school several weeks ago, “Civilization is a thin veneer”. That is my main observation from the book and what I hope to prove to the reader by the end of my writing. Civilization, as we know it, is nothing but a thin sheet separating us from becoming like the savages in Lord of The Flies.
For my first point, I bring back the idea of morality. Earlier I stated that the events of the book weren’t unnatural. Bringing that back, human technology and settlements did not start popping up until the advent of agriculture at c. 15,000 bce. This was because we had no time to think of things like technology and settling until we learned how to live outside of a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle. In the book there are no adults to propagate general civilization so the children are left to recount what they know. Their rules eventually break down, starting when the hunters let go of the fire (68-71). Rules and the following of rules is absolutely necessary for civilized lifestyles to exist. The advent of rules began to keep order, such as respecting a ruler or a god. If too many people oppose the ideal viewpoint, a civilization breaks apart. This brings social norms into the mix. The normality of these ideals and the ideals themselves eventually breakdown if someone is cast out into the wilderness because it makes civilized people resort to savage ways of life to survive, breaking down ideals. Morality breaks down the same way as social norms.
While murdering each other (as in Lord of The Flies) may seem more extreme it also applies the same way as my analogy in the previous paragraph.

However social normalities that are built in more strongly (such as, “don’t kill each other”) are deeper and will take longer to decay. This is also why after being hungry for an extreme amount of time, people will resort to cannibalism. This breakdown of society is what happens without rules and punishment, which is why law is such a basic fundamental of any civilization. Imagine for example, murder is legalized in New York. Absolute chaos would ensue, though due to the large amount of people, this would happen a lot faster than it would with the small group of people we find in Lord of The Flies. The novel emphasizes this topic and depicts, I think accurately, what would happen if a group of male pre-teens were thrust onto a barren island left to their own emotions. Their miniature immature society would crumble under the wants of all children their age as realized by this quote, “If I blow the conch and they don’t come back; then we’ve had it. We shan’t keep the fire going. We’ll be like animals. We’ll never be rescued.”(92). That signifies the beginning of the end in the

story.
For the first parts of my essay I focused on the story chronologically, now I focus on the end. The end started when civilized behaviours within the group completely decayed. I believe that the advent of the beast was a major factor in this. When they gave respect to the beast I believe it represented religion in a sense. To avoid offending anyone, I will use primitive beliefs such as greek or egyptian mythology as an example. They could not understand everything, in the same way these children could not. They created an explanation from beliefs to comfort them in life the same way the kids did because you can’t expect 6-12 year olds to understand dead soldiers falling from the sky. In this way, they marked that up to The Beast an imaginary creature hiding on the mountain that could cause them ruin if they refused to pay tribute. So they did. The pig head on a stick symbolized this well. Some however realize the silliness of the concept such as Ralph in the beginning and Simon later on, “Pig’s head on a stick.”(143). Tragically and sadistically, Simon is brutally murdered by the rest of the group who mistake him for the beat in a storm as he is coming to explain the truth of the beast to them. This is the end of civilized mannerisms on the island. After this point Jack’s tribe becomes savage in nature, as is only natural in this case. This process would normally have been slower but was accelerated by the age of those isolated from civilization. When civilization comes to find the boys nearing the point of clawing each other all to death, it is shocked and mortified by the events. So marks the end of the book.
I find Lord of The Flies an interesting take on human nature and the effects of isolation on the human psyche. While Golding most likely did not intend it at first the book provides the connection from humans to their ancestors and shows that the only thing keeping us from clawing each other out for power and food is our liking of a civil society in which murdering each other is ruled out and punished (something which was not practiced at all on the island). Human morals and ideals break down when a society is isolated from normal civilization and in need of food and order. Individuals strive for power, breaking out in violence during their small-scale conquest. The age of those in the book accelerated this process greatly, resulting in the collapse happening as the boys were rescued. It also showcases the rough sides of human nature and how they can oppose civil ideals. The book is a great connection to human nature and the ‘beast’ that lurks within all of us. In the end, one has to remember that we have the same biology as the cavemen we as a society stereotype as being hairy, stupid, and ape-like. Civilization is a thin veil to keep us from falling to that stereotype.