The Innate Evil Within Mankind: How Golding Portrayed the Truth of Humanity. Practically everyone ever alive has witnessed some sort of conflict. Whether it be a small spat that soon subsides or a war spanning years, people are known for their fights. In his novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding depicts a group in which the only success lay through bloodshed, and in this way, he portrays the true malicious nature of human society. Golding was a man raised during the World War I. In his lifetime, he witnessed many of man’s most wicked exploits, and through those he learned the true nature of mankind. In his novel, Golding then depicts his learnings through the characters he created. He portrays the brutality he observed in his life through Lord of the Flies, using young kids stranded on an island to convey his message on the monstrosities of human nature. One such way he conveys this is by demonstrating the kids’ callous dispositions. After witnessing one kid, Percival, cry after getting sand kicked in his face, Johnny “began to fling up sand in a shower,” causing Percival to cry again (Golding 61). Despite witnessing Percival’s distress due to the sand in his eyes, Johnny promptly did it again. He didn’t care about Percival. He didn’t care …show more content…
And he’s correct, humans are innately evil. However, somehow society isn’t altogether bad. Why do you need to be a member? Because people can learn to be good. Despite the immoral impulses of everyone, only some succumb to these urges. Thus, it is possible for people to change. Good and evil are two sides of the same coin. If people are able to be evil, then it must also be possible to be good. Those who are righteous must share their knowledge with the world. With the right resources, everyone can grow past their nature; humanity can learn to be good. All it takes is someone to start
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies portrays the lives of young British boys whose plane crashed on a deserted island and their struggle for survival. The task of survival was challenging for such young boys, while maintaining the civilized orders and humanity they were so accustomed too. These extremely difficult circumstances and the need for survival turned these innocent boys into the most primitive and savaged mankind could imagine. William Golding illustrates man’s capacity for evil, which is revealed in man’s inherent nature. Golding uses characterization, symbolism and style of writing to show man’s inhumanity and evil towards one another.
Violence has remained desirable throughout human history as great pleasure is received from inflicting pain on others. In the Lord of the Flies, William Golding creates a world of increasing violence. He establishes this violence through the setting of the novel, the characters, and the theme.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is a sordid tale about a group of kids who are stranded on a deserted island after their plane crashes. The story is set during the Atomic War and plenty of references are made to the fact. However, the real key to the story lies in the role of Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies. Beelzebub has a central role in the story as he represents the Beast, or evil, that dwells within all humans. The Beast cannot be hunted and since it dwells within all humans, humans are all guilty because mankind is sick. The destruction of mankind is a point that Golding makes apparent often in this novel. He establishes early on that Beelzebub is a force within all humans that drives them to destroy and maim. In the story the central emblem of the story lies in the dead airman. The boys mistake him for Beelzebub and basically begin to worship him.
In the beginning chapters of, Lord of the Flies, William Golding foreshadows action that will come further on in the novel. He does this by introducing various conflicts. These conflicts are, order versus disorder, good versus evil, harmony versus discord and many conflicts also arise between the boys.
Lord of the Flies is the name given to the inner beast, to which only
Incredibly, throughout the entirety of the book, Golding uses irony to compare the boy’s on the island to the adults at war in the outside world. Jack arrived on the island with a sense of superiority saying that “after all, we're not savages. We're English; and the English are best at everything. So we've got to do the right things (The lord of the Flies pg. 42).” Then Jack turns right around and his first step toward a savage lifestyle was painting up his face with mud and dirt to put on a mask before he goes hunting. At the end of the book Jack is so far gone that he hunts another boy. He plans on placing Ralph’s head on a stick in order to get a message across- you’re either with me or against me. Jack is the same one who goes to steal
Golding has a rather pessimistic view of humanity having selfishness, impulsiveness and violence within, shown in his dark yet allegorical novel Lord of the Flies. Throughout the novel, the boys show great self-concern, act rashly, and pummel beasts, boys and bacon. The delicate facade of society is easily toppled by man's true beastly nature.
Katherine Paterson once said, “To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.” William Golding, who is a Nobel Prize winner for literature, writes Lord of the Flies, originally published in 1954. Golding’s novel is about a group of boys who crash land on an island. All of the adults are dead and they are abandoned on an island. The boys try to set rules and create a fire in efforts of being rescued. The group of boys chooses Ralph to be their leader. This choosing makes a literary character named Jack, who doesn’t show his anger until half way through the plot. The novel shows the nature of humans and how fear can control them. The novel also shows the difference between good and evil. Golding experienced this when he was in World War II. There were many times fear controlled the boys in the island in Lord of the Flies.
William Golding’s, ‘Lord of the Flies’, is a powerful piece of literature that teaches important perspectives on the human nature and mind. In the story, the boys plane is shot down by the the military in which it lands on a deserted island. After this event, the boys’ decide to create a civilization on the island until they’re rescued. Golding paints a realistic image of evil, hope, and order expressed through the three items: the Lord of the Flies, the fire, and the conch during World War 2. The boys believe these items will assist them, however, they end up all tearing them apart in the end: the symbols all appear to be beneficial to the situation but eventually lead to their demise. Golding effectively uses the literary device symbolism to develop the theme in the novel that chaos and destruction can occur in the most peaceful places.
“Drug dealers go big, use Boeing for coke run”, “11 killed in Pakistan by suicide bomber”, “Parents largely unaware teen binge drinking is growing deadlier” (Edmonton Journal, November 18, 2009). It is truly staggering to see the number of articles concerning crime, felony and death in a newspaper, everyday. It is not hard to find articles about laws being broken, about lawbreakers going free and about people being killed. The concept of newspapers full of stories showing humanity’s evil suggests that there is something wrong with today’s world, but newspapers have always been full of such articles and events. It is clear that humanity’s evil inspired William Golding’s Lord of the Flies: a commentary on the innate evil in all man. In Golding’s novel, a group of young boys survive a plane crash and become marooned on an empty island. Their attempt at civilization quickly fails, and leads to disorder, death and savagery.
' I believe that man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature '.
1. Given that Piggy represents society and its rules, he must have found his situation on the island disturbing at the least. At first, there is no organized social structure of any kind; no position of leadership existed. There was an absence of rules. This must have been very disturbing to Piggy. Then, as the story progresses, a sort of chain of leadership emerges with Ralph being voted as “chief.” “Ralph raised his hand for silence. ‘All right. Who wants Jack for chief?’ With dreary obedience the choir raised their hands. ‘Who wants me?’ Every hand outside the choir except Piggy’s was raised immediately. Then, Piggy too, raised his hand grudgingly into the air. Ralph counted. ‘I’m chief then.’”(LoF p21). Then, a little bit later, Ralph brings up the idea of rules: “Jack was on his feet. ‘We’ll have rules!’ he cried excitedly. Lots of rules! Then when anyone breaks them-’”(LoF p33). When the “hunters” kill their first pig is when we start to see signs of a more primal society, or lack thereof. They repeat the chant, “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.” Piggy obviously if fed up with Jack and his hunters, asking, “What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? What’s grownups going to think?’”(LoF p.91). And then, Ralph’s authority is challenged by Jack. Jack first disregards the rule of letting the person with conch speak without interruption. Then he directly challenges Ralph, saying, “And you shut up! Who are you, anyway? Sitting there, telling people what to do. You can’t hunt, you can’t sing-’”(LoF p91). From this confrontation is goes downhill on the island. On pg. 114, a “game” gets a little out of hand, when Robert pretends to be the pig, and the others pretend to hunt him, but then they become more serious and actually hurt him. He is not killed, however. Eventually, Jack and some of the other boys split apart from Ralph and his “group.” Jack and his hunting band kill another pig savagely, reveling in its agony. The “peak of their decline” was when they killed Simon, calling him a beast, during the storm. Then Piggy is killed, and the conch is shattered, and that is when I consider them to be at the absolute lowest in society: nothing more than savages.
In Lord of the Flies, William Golding expresses the idea that humans are naturally immoral, and that people are moral only because of the pressures of civilization. He does this by writing about a group of boys, and their story of survival on an island. The civilized society they form quickly deteriorates into a savage tribe, showing that away from civilization and adults, the boys quickly deteriorate into the state man was millions of years ago. This tendency is shown most in Jack, who has an animalistic love of power, and Roger, who loves to kill for pleasure. Even the most civilized boys, Ralph and Piggy, show that they have a savage side too as they watch Simon get murdered without trying to save him. Simon, the only one who seems to have a truly good spirit, is killed, symbolizing how rare truly good people are, and how quickly those personalities become corrupted.
In the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of young boys from England are evacuated out of their country due to a war. The plane is then shot down and results into a plane crash on a deserted island. The boys are left all alone with no adults, no supplies, and no one to come and rescue them. They are all on their own and have to establish a new “society”. The boys have to choose someone to govern them and that person ends up being Ralph, who had an internal struggle between what is right and wrong closer to the end of the novel. The boys turn into savages, killing each other, and showing their evil inside each of them. According to, William Golding man is inherently evil, evil is in all of us, but it is oppressed by society, and comes out when there is not anything to hold us back, civilization is what holds back evil from coming out, or it is what triggers evil inside of man.
William Golding's first book, Lord of the Flies, is the story of a group of boys of different backgrounds who are marooned on an unknown island when their plane crashes. As the boys try to organize and formulate a plan to get rescued, they begin to separate and as a result of the dissension a band of savage tribal hunters is formed. Eventually the "stranded boys in Lord of the Flies almost entirely shake off civilized behavior: (Riley 1: 119). When the confusion finally leads to a manhunt [for Ralph], the reader realizes that despite the strong sense of British character and civility that has been instilled in the youth throughout their lives, the boys have backpedaled and shown the underlying savage side existent in all humans. "Golding senses that institutions and order imposed from without are temporary, but man's irrationality and urge for destruction are enduring" (Riley 1: 119). The novel shows the reader how easy it is to revert back to the evil nature inherent in man. If a group of well-conditioned school boys can ultimately wind up committing various extreme travesties, one can imagine what adults, leaders of society, are capable of doing under the pressures of trying to maintain world relations.