Lord Of The Flies: Shattered Civilization

Shattered Civilization
In the fictional novel, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. The hunters started off as a chorus and no trace of savagery in them. The longer they are on the island the more savage they become. They crash land on the island trying to escape a bomb threat. They are proper but the will to survive kicks in and so does savagery. They had fully immersed in savagery when they did unthinkable things to each other. On their time on the island the chorus/ hunters, slowly loose civilization and slip into savagery, when they first land on the island there is not a single trace of savagery in them, the longer they are on the island the farther they slip away from civilization. There civilization has shattered all they have

is savagery.
When they first land island there is not a single trace of savagery in them. In the beginning, Ralph and Piggy are gathering boys and collecting names when they see a creature in the distance, “ The creature was a party of boys, marching approximately in step in two parallel lines”(19). They are walking perfectly not missing a step, their main concern is staying in perfect unison. Once the others meet the chorus they notice their attire, “Their bodies from throat to ankle were hidden by black cloaks which bore a long silver cross on the left breast”(19). A savage person would not dress in this attire. They are the embodiment of proper and perfect. They are a group of schoolboys that can do no wrong or so we think.
The longer they are on the farther they slip away from civilization.

After the failed attempt at killing a pig, Jack realised that he had to hide in plain sight, he smeared clay onto his face and, “he began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling… the mask was a thing of its own, behind which he hide, liberated from shame and self-consciousness” (64). Jack was the first to slip away from civilization he was taken over by a force greater than him, the beast within, which made him unrecognizable. The hunters had found a pig and slaughtered it, “knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink”(70). They thought the slaughter of a pig was satisfying. They were slipping farther away from

civilization.
Their civilization was taken away like a long satisfying drink.

The hunters had made a plan, the must give a gift to the beast, “the hunters followed, wedded to her lust, excited by the long chase and dropped blood”(135). They were excited by the kill. After they split into two, Piggy and Ralph went to speak to the hunters, “Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever. The Rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee”(181). Roger killed Piggy with a second thought, only someone who has lost civilization would be capable of such a deed. Once Piggy died, the symbol of civilization, “the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist”(181). Their civilization has shattered like the conch and ceases to

exist.
The hunters have listened to the beast within. They started proper and slipped away from civilization and into savagery. It did not take long for the savagery to take over. Once it shattered their was no return to civilization. Golding’s message is our civilization, we have to listen to our civilization and our beast. Our civilization helps us to make to rational decisions, but sometimes is the thing that kills us, because civilization prevents us from doing what we need to do to survive, that's why we have to listen to the beast. Our beast is the voice inside us that tells us to do certain things, that our civilization tells us is wrong. The beast helps us to survive in certain situations, but if we let the beast take over civilization will be silenced.