'Lord Of The Flies' By William Golding: Chapter Analysis

Our textbook poses these questions near the beginning of chapter three: “If we were untouched by society, would we be like feral children? By nature, would our behavior be like that of wild animals?” (67). It is rather difficult to actually study feral children, but in The Lord of the Flies, William Golding creates a world that allows us to imagine how children would act if they were isolated from the rest of society.
Golding believes that man is its own worst enemy, which is a leading theme in his novel. It suggests that wickedness is an inherent part of human nature. Without the rules and regulations of structured society, society would fall in disarray. As the book progresses, the society that the boys create develops into a society with very little to no morals. Our textbook argues that society makes us human: “babies do not develop “naturally” into social adults. If children

are reared in isolation, their bodies grow, but they become little more than big animals.”(70). The novel supports this statement by seemingly making the children’s behavior animalistic by the end of the story.
In the early pages of the novel, the boys try to recreate a society of their own by electing Ralph to be their leader.

I believe this is because the boys originally came from a place where there was some form of structure, whether they realized it or not since they were involved in a time of war. As leader, Ralph starts off by giving assignments to the other boys, again in similitude to a normal structured society. Ralph appears to be a democratic leader. Traits of a democratic leader are : which Ralph shows by considering the other boys’ suggestions. Ralph lets Jack be in charge of his choir boys. He is an authoritarian leader. Traits of this leadership style are: I think that it is ironic that Jack claims that “we’ll have rules! Lots of Rules! Then when any one breaks ‘em—Whee-oh! Wacco! Bong! Doink!” (33). He is suggesting that there are going to be punishment for rules no being followed, but he seems to be relaying the ideas with noises that suggest violence. He and his group of boys are the ones who primarily begin to disobey the rules since there is no one available to punish

them.
As mentioned above, the author has the idea that man is inherently wicket, meaning man has the potential to commit evil acts, and so there will always be criminals in the world. This means that a society in which there are no punishments for crime will falter, as was the case in this story. The children turn to committing sacrifices, not only with the pig they kill, but also with Simon. Although not a sacrifice, Roger also kills Piggy on purpose by smashing him with a rock.
Although he wasn’t the most intelligent of the children stranded on the Island, Ralph was probably the most civilized of them all. At the end of the novel, when the children are being rescued he states: indicating that things started really going downhill after the death of piggy and reinforcing the idea that humans are inherently bad.