Lord Of The Flies Quote Analysis

The Truth about Good and Evil

“The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” (Solzhenitsyn) Lord of the Flies is a famous allegory written by an author named William Golding. It was published in 1954. Lord of the Flies is about a group of boys that are stranded on an island. They are forced to work together in order to survive. In the beginning of the book, they actually had a good start for civilization, but throughout the book, each boy turns more and more savage by the minute. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding presents the idea that there is evil in everyone’s hearts, even if they’re a very good person.

The whole tribe really loved and enjoyed killing pigs. Ralph hated that Jack and his hunters don’t do anything but hunt, but when he throws a spear at a pig, he feels excited and thinks hunting may not be bad after all: “He sunned himself in their new respect and felt that hunting may be good after all.” (Golding, 113) Ralph thought hunting was a VERY bad idea and they should only focus on the fire, but when the spear hit the pig’s snout Ralph immediately thought hunting may not be bad after all. That thrill and

savagery of striking a pig is enough to change his mind.

They all played a game where they would pretend that someone is a pig and would pretend to kill him. Maurice pretended to be the pig and the hunters pretended to beat him: “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in.” (Golding, 75) This is a really bad practice for killing pigs and will eventually go wrong. Later in the book, Robert pretended to be the pig and they actually hurt Robert. Saying that someone’s a pig makes it easier to kill him because killing an animal is easier than killing a human being. This game is making people look at everyone as a bunch of worthless pigs, which contributed a lot to the tribe turning into savages. This “game” is not a good thing to do because it influences savagery.

Ralph and Piggy seemed very nice, but later in the book they both murdered Simon. They did their dance as usual, and they just threw Simon in the middle of the circle. They all attacked him and Simon was crying for his life: “Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon’s dead body moved out toward the open sea.” (Golding, 154) They killed him! Just by playing that game they killed him! Very good people turned savage and killed Simon! Ralph and Piggy may seem like the nicest people in the book, but they had a darkness deep inside of them.

It is often argued that bad isn’t in every person’s hearts because Ralph never goes onto Jack’s side and turns into a savage throughout the book.

One cannot deny that this is pretty much correct. It is true that Ralph stood alone when everyone else was on Jack’s side. Nevertheless, Ralph did help in the act of killing Simon. Ralph still shows signs of evil and savagery. So everyone still have evil deep inside of them. Philip Zimbardo even said this during his TED talk about the Lucifer Effect: “So Milgram is quantifying evil as the willingness of people to blindly obey authority, to go all the way to 450 volts. And it's like a dial on human nature. A dial in a sense that you can make almost everybody totally obedient, down to the majority, down to none.” Therefore, there is still a darkness in everyone’s

hearts.

Even if the person is the nicest person in the world, they still have a darkness in their heart, and you can’t get rid of it. In Lord of the Flies, the boys showed signs of evolving into savages. They made playing their “game” into a habit and as a result they turned into savages and killed Simon. If people do not change how they behave, we will end up destroying all of civilization.