A debate has been going on in the psychiatric world for a while about whether human personality/ behavior is based on genetics or society-- the environment they were raised in. This debate is known as nature v. nurture. The novel Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, helps readers understand this debate much further. The author explains his opinion throughout the descriptions in his book and supports it with the actions of the boys that were stranded on an island with no adults (where adults are the society). An experiment called The Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by Dr. Zimbardo, assists the readers with understanding the symbolic meaning behind Golding’s novel. He explains how “anonymity, conformity and boredom can be used …show more content…
In order to be rescued, they had to survive. Acting like the civilians they were, they created a plan to help with their survival. Nonetheless, after a while they started to fit in with the wilderness. In the wild, animals kill other animals with no problem. The kids started acting like animals. However, instead of just killing animals, they had no problem with killing humans too. No one thought for a second that the “beast” they were killing would be someone or something else. Before murdering Simon, one of the littluns pointed at him and screamed, “Him! Him!” ( Golding 152). None of the boys stopped to comprehend why that little lun was screaming “him”. All they knew was that their goal was to kill whatever was in front of them. When they killed Piggy, no one felt pity. The novel said, “A great noise as of seagulls rose behind him” (Golding 181). Right after they killed Piggy they went on to kill Ralph. It was as if the killing was a fine act. They became savages. As Dr. Zimbardo once said, “If you put good apples into a bad situation, you’ll get bad apples” (2). In the beginning SPE, only some of the guards abused the prisoners. Though a few days later, more and more joined in. The nice guards became bad guards because they wanted to fit in with the others. These acts are examples of conformity. They all just wanted to fit in with the environment surrounding …show more content…
They thought that since adults weren’t there to boss them around, they were going to have an adventure. However, after awhile they became bored. Most of the boys joined Jack’s tribe for that very reason. They wanted to hunt pigs for excitement. They even made a chant, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” (Golding 152). Another event that happened was when Robert played the boar and the boys acted like they were hunting him. They got so caught up in the “game” and lost sight of the limits. As they played on, the hunting wasn’t so fake anymore. The book explains, “Robert squealed in mock terror, then in real pain” (Golding 114). Robert actually got hurt by the boys. This was all because they were having so much fun. Just like the novel, once the guards got bored in the SPE, their actions became worse. They “ordered the prisoners to stimulate sodoomy” because of the boredom (Dr. Zimbardo 1). As the doctor said, “Boredom is a powerful motive for evil” (1). The children and the guards chose to rape and abuse others as an entertainment. This proves that when put into a certain situation, humans can become evil. Evil is an immense theme in the Lord of the Flies. This book helps us understand how society has a big part in changing someone’s personality. Nurture is also a big part in the novel. It symbolizes the meaning behind what it is like to change personalities/behavior depending on an environment.
In the book The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding a couple of boys stranded on an island must survive in the absence of adult supervision. These boys struggle between the choice of either constantly working to be rescued or beginning a new life on the island. In the end, there is a lot of killing and savage like behavior. I believe that both the environment and biological factors can be blamed for the boys’ savage and immoral behavior, however, the biological factors had the most impact on their behavior. The environmental factors that affect their behavior include the situation in which they are stranded on an island and the fact that their isn’t any adult supervision. Biological factors that affect the behavior of these boys include the
In today's society each one of us has our very own responsibilities and moralities. The development of responsibility comes from how well we have matured. And our sense of morality comes from our experience and knowledge. Theses two skills develop with the aid of parents or any adult, maturity teaches us about the path of understanding things in the society and it leads to the decision to choose from right or wrong. The events of Lord of flies can be easily compared to those in the book The adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In these two books , it deals with the two main characters who are not old enough to hold such respon...
When viewing the atrocities of today's world on television, the starving children, the wars, the injustices, one cannot help but think that evil is rampant in this day and age. However, people in society must be aware that evil is not an external force embodied in a society but resides within each person. Man has both good qualities and faults. He must come to control these faults in order to be a good person. In the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding deals with this same evil which exists in all of his characters. With his mastery of such literary tools as structure, syntax, diction and imagery, The author creates a cheerless, sardonic tone to convey his own views of the nature of man and man’s role within society.
Throughout the novel several different characters are introduced to the reader, such as Ralph, Jack, Simon and Piggy. With all these characters presented to the reader, one can get to see into their minds-eye, which allows the reader to analyze their character. In this case one could examine their basic morals and distinguish between the person’s natural instinct to rely on civilization or savagery to solve their problems. The author of the novel, William Golding, had a “first-hand experience of battle line action during World War II” which caused him to realize, “[that] The war alone was not what appalled him, but what he had learnt of the natural - and original- sinfulness of mankind did. It was the evil seen daily as commonplace and repeated by events it was possible to read in any newspaper which, he asserted, were the matter of Lord of the Flies” (Foster, 7-10). This being said by Golding leads one to the central problem in the novel the Lord of the Flies, which can be regarded as the distinction between civility and savagery. This can be seen through the characters that are presented in the novel, and how these boys go from a disciplined lifestyle, to now having to adapt to an unstructured and barbaric one in the jungle.
Evil is an inescapable consequence of human nature, and in the correct setting, this intrinsic evil of humanity will emerge. In Lord of the Flies, the island acts as a microcosm presenting the real world, yet it is left uncharted to creating a bare environment away from the destructive nature of humanity. The novel explores the notion in which man destroys every beautiful environment they settle in, and that when in a bare setting, free of social construct, the evil and primal urges would surface. When the boys first arrive on the island, Golding paints it to be beautiful and not yet spoiled by man, highlighted in the use of personification in ‘the palm-fronds would whisper, so that spots of blurred sunlight slid over their bodies’ which creates
The story, Lord of the Flies is mainly about good and evil on an island between a group of young boys aging from approximately six to twelve. The story is full of meanings, which involve certain characters.
William Golding’s novel ‘The Lord of The Flies’ tells the story of a group of English boys isolated on a desert island, left to attempt to retain civilisation. In the novel, Golding shows one of the boys, Jack, to change significantly. At the beginning of the book, Jack’s character desires power and although he does not immediately get it, he retains the values of civilized behaviour. However, as the story proceeds, his character becomes more savage, leaving behind the values of society. Jack uses fear of the beast to control the other boys and he changes to become the book’s representation of savagery, violence and domination. He is first taken over with an obsession to hunt, which leads to a change in his physical appearance This change of character is significant as he leads the other boys into savagery, representing Golding’s views of there being a bad and unforgiving nature to every human.
Could it be, that our personality lay more in the power of situation and less in the power of biological factors? The boys’ savage and immoral behavior, shown at the end of the novel, “Lord of the Flies” should be condemned on both the environmental situation they lived through and biological factors. This novel is based on the topic of nature versus nurture and although I agree that they both had an impact on the boys ' behavior, a more rational appeal would be that the power of the situation overruled the power of biological factors. The boys were very conservative in the beginning but the longer they stayed stranded the more selfish a majority of them became.Golding developed his first claim by first comparing the common attitudes expressed between the boys, then narrated how they had different perspectives for survivnig on the island, and finally illustrates the importance of guidance in order to maintain a properly functioned society
In spite of this, this novel proves that civilization has the power to keep one’s innate cruelty under control. The instance of a society running rampant with evil is seen when the group of boys abandon the civilized behaviors of the adult world, and predominately begin to take in Jack’s vicious influence on them. Thus, as the boys began to act more barbaric and savage, they do not feel the need to listen to Ralph's wisdom and guidance anymore. If they had listened to him, Piggy and Simon, in all likelihood, would not have had to die, and many wise plans would have been followed. Overall, the author reveals that due to the savage and violent nature of humans, qualities of physical power are more prominent than the often under looked qualities of civility and common intelligence in
civilization versus savagery; the clashing of instinct with ideal: the ideal to live by the rules, act peacefully, follow moral commands, and value the good of the group, is set against the basic instinct to fulfill one’s immediate desires, act violently to obtain supremacy over others, and enforce one’s will. In the beginning of the book, soon after they crash-land on the island, Ralph and Piggy begin to- as it says in the book- “do as the adults would do”, that is, call
“Everybody has good and evil within them. All we're trying to say is that people are not all good or all bad. People are more complicated than you think, and one has to be more knowledgeable about the complexities.” This quotation from Stephen Schwartz establishes that even the best of people can be bitter by their own nature. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding removes the restraints of society to prove that it is human nature to live primitively and that evil lies within all of us. The sanctions of society begin to deteriorate due to the loss of communication, Jack’s obsession with hunting, and the inhumane nature of Jack and his “tribe”.
This leads to the fact that a beast really does exist within all human beings, but is only expressed when human instinct for survival becomes the main objective. At first the boys aren?t able to kill, but as survival instinct starts taking over, the reader?s are able to se the true character?s play out, and lives are compromised. ?You feel as if you?re not hunting, but- being hunted, as if something?s behind you all the time in the jungle,? (pg.53) proves that it?s every man for himself and people will do anything to survive. An example of this in the novel was when Robert became the ?pig,? and was wounded even though it wasn?t intentional, but the situation became worse when Piggy?s death happened as a result of all civilization lost and evil taken over.
Lord of the Flies provides one with a clear understanding of Golding's view of human nature. Whether this view is right or wrong is a point to be debated. This image Golding paints for the reader, that of humans being inherently bad, is a perspective not all people share. Lord of the Flies is but an abstract tool of Golding's to construct the idea of the inherent evil of human nature in the minds of his readers. To construct this idea of the inherent evil, Golding employs the symbolism of Simon, Ralph, the hunt and the island.
In all humans, evil exists. At some point we have to release it, and want to release it. For example, on the island Jack and Robert showed their evil while beating Wilfred, or even Robert who was hurt while the boys received pleasure out of his beating. Roger states, "He's going to beat Wilfred, I don't know why, he didn't say," (pg.159) as he giggles. Another example is when Robert is beaten by the boys for no reason in frenzy where he is the pig. They chant in chapter seven, "Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!" (pg. 114). These examples clearly show that the kids are letting their true evil get the better of them. As these boys are also humans, this also means that even if they were girls, and were exposed to a place where there was no civilization, they would want to let their evil out as well. It was philosophized by Thomas Hobbes- the famous English Philosopher, "All humans are born selfish and only seek their own personal interest, leading to violence and war." This quote is true and summarizes the children ...
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies shows man’s inhumanity to man. This novel shows readers good vs. evil through children. It uses their way of coping with being stranded on an island to show us how corrupt humans really are.