Human Nature In Lord Of The Flies Relation To Teenagers In The World Today

Lord of the Flies in Relation to Teenagers in the World Today
Through different sources of information and references in the real world to text and vice versa, authors illustrate the idea of human nature. An example of an illustration of human nature is in the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding which relates to real world examples such as teenagers bullying and cyberbullying. Through the portrayal of the boys in the novel, it is recognizable that human nature can relate to teenagers in the world today.
Changes in human nature can be portrayed in many ways as seen throughout the novel. During the novel the boys’ personalities change, as their essential needs weren’t being met. Ralph, Piggy, Simon, Jack, and a few others were in charge

of making sure the island was not just chaos. Specifically, Jack and his initial tribe were in charge of keeping the fire going, and Simon, Ralph, Ralph, Piggy and a few others were supposed to be building the shelters that would house the boys while they were on the island.

The boys in charge of the building of shelters saw the ship passing by and were glad that the other boys were in charge of the fire and were keeping it lit, the boys were out hunting and they let the fire down not realizing the need to keep it up. This is an example of a change in personality because originally they were supposed to keep the fire but they wanted to eat meat more than keep the fire going. Another example of the boys in the novel changing their personality is when the boys were switching tribes not because they liked the way that Jack ruled but because Ralph wasn’t providing them with meat like Jack could. This can be seen in the book on page 126 when Jack asked who wanted to be in his tribe and no one wanted to but they all secretly went a few pages later as represented in this quote “‘Where’s Bill and Roger?’...’I expect they’ve gone,’”(131). This quote happens about a day after Jack separates from Piggy and Ralph, and all of the boys stayed at first when Jack left but they trickled out afterwards. The novel

specifically doesn’t only have older children, in order to portray a difference in the way the boys are as they are younger and older, the littluns can show the difference in the amount of knowledge and understanding between different age groups. A way the author explains this is in the very beginning when they are trying to get in order just after the plane crashed, they held their first assembly.

At this first assembly it is very evident that there is two different age groups, the littluns and the older children. This is the very first mention of “the beast” a small boy known as the scar faced boy, he mentions the beast and says that he has seen it in this next quote, “He says the beastie cam in the dark,”(36). At first most of the older boys don’t believe him, but over time they develop a fear of something that they don’t even know is real. In this instance the older boys are very sure that they are very much above the younger boys and that this is a very silly thing and that they aren’t thinking as logically as the older boys, or how the older boys think they are. At a different point in the book, closer to the end, Jack decides that he doesn’t want to have Ralph as a leader so he goes and makes his own tribe. Within this tribe there is the group of hunters that provide all of the meat that they had had on the island. All of the younger boys are very set on staying with Ralph and Piggy at first, until the night of the bonfire. On the night of the bonfire the boys are eating meat, not the usual

berries and fruit, this is an example of how most of the boys, specifically the younger boys, were very easily sueded to join the other tribe just for food. Piggy and Ralph were considered outcasts in their society which can be identified by and recognized by the death of Simon and the death of Piggy. Reading through what was the death of Simon can really put into perspective the amount that these boys have changed and how their perspective on what is moral is very much different than in the beginning of the book. If the boys had been asked in the beginning of the book whether or not killing someone by accident was okay, they would’ve said no, but by this point in the book the boys would’ve said it was fine, or would’ve come up with an excuse of why it would be fine. All of these ideas and examples show the different ways that human nature is portrayed throughout the story.
Literature must come in contact and relate to real world topics like an unending specification of age groups, like teenagers and how they can relate to this story. The boys on the island always had to be doing something whether it be hunting or a job that was crucial to the island, which is very closely related to the teenage need to be occupied by something. A way that this is illustrated in the book is when Jack and a few others were in charge of keeping the signal fire lit, in case a ship passed by, and they got too bored so they went off hunting instead of doing their jobs to keep themselves occupied. This can be found in the book “The fire was out, smokeless and dead; the watchers were gone”(68). Within the book the boys have to be occupied, which has some relation to teenagers feeling the need to look at their cell phones, or mobile devices while watching television. In many different studies, one from January of 2013, says that more than half of people, around 60%, like to watch the traditional television but at the same time have their tablet or smartphone near them, either to look at at the same time or to check an email or text. Another real world theme that this book represents and sheds light on is bullying, this can relate to bullying in the past and bullying now. To fully understand bullying a very simple definition is repeated hurtful acts towards another, whether it be verbal or physical. The tolerance of bullying has developed greatly over the past thirty years. The concept of bullying has not changed but the way that people act as a bully and how other people take it has become more and more serious and is taken much more seriously. An example of bullying in the past was in Ontario, in 1988. An article from a Canadian site, the National Post, says “‘Kids are completely out of control,’ the mother of a bullied six-year-old tells the Toronto Star. ‘Both in the playground and in the school, they push, shove, smack and have no regard or respect for each other at all,’”. This is a real representation of what bullying used to be like and how little action was being taken. According to the same article, in 2011, when it was written, they were trying to pass a bill that made bullying something that students could be expelled for. But bullying as a whole is not completely resolved there is still a major awareness that bullying is still here it is just in a different form, an example is cyber bullying. The difference between cyber bullying and bullying in schools in the eighties is that social media keeps a record of everything. Cyber bullying is something that is being worked on a resolution. The way that bullying was in the past compared to now and how little tolerance is actually in place has changed over time.
With the knowledge that the boys from the novel display an area of human nature in relation to teenagers in the world. Human nature is a topic that related to more than just literature it is a real world topic. Human nature can be applied to real life as guidelines to live as a good human being, from being a teenager and on.