Roger Missing In Lord Of The Flies

The human is the only animal that has questioned its own existence and purpose. Throughout centuries, different philosophers have pondered over this issue, with each question asked slowly peeling off the layers obscuring the answer. As psychology has come along, as well as a better preservation of historical records, it has become clear what human nature is like. As Sigmund Freud once said, “No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed”. As a famous psychologist and one who spent his days peering into the abyss of the human soul, he had seen a variety of people and saw the evil within them. Even before

Freud, famous philosopher Thomas Hobbes had discerned this trait of evil within all humans. In his political masterpiece, “Leviathan”, Hobbes argues that man’s inherently evil nature is best controlled under powerful governments. “Lord of The Flies”, by William Golding has also been able to prove this point. A book about an island full of stranded kids and what happens when the rules of society break down, it clearly proves the idea of the inherent evil in human nature. The evil seen in humans can be seen through Roger and his actions, the religious fanaticism and behavior of the kids, the rise of ISIS, and cyberbullying.
Before delving into this rather murky topic, it’s worth building a framework around which the reader can compare these historical events and literary examples with. According to the dictionary, evil is defined as “profound immorality, wickedness, and depravity”. Now this “profound immorality” is centered around human built morals. Of course, in pure nature, there is no such thing as morals, as ethics is a human construct. Thomas Hobbes observed this first. When describing humans in their state of nature, he says humans only want to save their own skin, and their actions are purely to promote their own well-being (Tennessee 2). As such, it can be derived that humans in nature will naturally act in their own self interest and to help themselves, promoting behavior that could hurt others if it could help themselves. This fact can be seen in human’s closest relative: the Chimpanzee. Regardless of personal disbelief, human DNA is 98.8% identical to these apes (AMNH 1). Chimps in nature are naturally aggressive and violent, with a male dominated hierarchical structure (Similar to humans, and interestingly enough, like humans, idiosyncratic because many animal hierarchal structures are matriarchal). Chimpanzees also attack each other in “organized onslaughts” (Geggel 2). As it can be seen through Chimp behavior, Hobbes’s observations and the human construct of morals, it can be seen that humans are inherently evil.
This evil is never more clear than in the case of the rise of ISIS. ISIS and other radical islamic groups represent the innate human need to be violent and evil with religion as an excuse to be so. As Sigmund Freud declared, “Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.”, and those instinctual desires are that of evil and violence. ISIS’s rise is representative of human evil. If people were inherently good, then wouldn’t they be swayed by internal morals to not commit these acts of treachery? The occurrence of 9/11 and other bombings from islamic terrorist groups show that people need a method and reason to be evil. Another damning point is the fact that many of the most recent bombings and shootings haven’t even been initiated by original ISIS members, but rather those who have been influenced by the propaganda. For example, the San Bernardino shooting was initiated by two originally unorthodox muslims, who after watching ISIS propaganda, were prompted to commit homicide. The diverse audience reached and who join groups like ISIS is no coincidence. Humans are naturally evil, and need to find a method to output this inherent need. When the technology has permitted, many more people have been influenced to reach this. Therefore, ISIS cannot be said to be a modern creation, as with social media, the message of savagery has been able to be spread faster and wider. Also, occurrences of religion as a guise for political and violent means has been recorded throughout history (e.g. The Crusades). The existence of religious fanaticism and violence along with it would not be so natural if it weren’t for our inherent evil.
Along with ISIS, the rise of cyberbullying and other such malicious internet activity can be attributed to the inherent evil of human nature. When known that they can remain anonymous, people choose to become evil on the internet. As a matter of a fact, 50% of teens have experienced some form of cyberbullying. Now in conjunction with Hobbes’s philosophical ideas, it is clear why people choose to cyberbully. One type known as cat fishing involves a situation in which a person fakes their identity in order to be someone that they aren’t, and in many cases, someone who doesn’t even exist. There’s really no reason people would do this except to stoke their own esteem needs, to know that they have control over someone else’s life and the other person doesn’t even know it. This is a representation of evil, of malevolent behavior in its most natural form. Even more disturbing are all the other types of cyberbullying that exist. They can range from repeated teasing online to trolling. Trolling is a word that is well known amongst millennials; a troll is someone who makes mean or immature comments just to incite others. This is a manifestation of our innate evil. When people want to feel better about themselves, or they want to increase their own self esteem, they resort to behavior that is inherently malicious, behavior that under our own moral codes is wrong, and when torn down to the most basic level, it’s behavior that is meant to make people feel better about themselves by hurting those around them, those who are helpless.
Along with these real world examples, “Lord Of The Flies” by William Golding also has a few examples of the inherent evil in humans.

The first is Roger and his actions. Throughout the book, as morals break down, the children’s behavior becomes more savage and evil by human standards. In the beginning, William Golding had already introduced Roger as an inherently evil boy, but with his actions still controlled by a mental barrier of right and wrong behavior. As a littlun sits in the sand and plays, Roger begins to throw rocks at him, but purposefully misses each time. Roger missing is not something of conscious decision, as it can be read in the passage, but rather stems from his subconscious moral compass that was built by society. It seems here the contention of Roger’s evil has been lost because he failed to perform an evil action because of a subconscious barrier, but this subconscious barrier was constructed by society, by school, and by the adults who have taught them boys about ethical behavior. Therefore, it can be expected that once these children are away from society for long enough, these barriers would break down because they aren’t inherent to their nature, and prompt them to do evil things. Roger demonstrates this. When Jack breaks off from the original group led by Ralph and his forms a tribe of savagery, it represents the boys breaking off from society and entering the human “state of nature”. Roger’s actions at this point in the plot become sinister and perverse. In Chapter 8, “Roger [begins] to withdraw his spear and [the] boys [notice] it for the first time. Robert [stabilizes] the thing in a phrase which [is] received uproariously. “Right up her ass!””(195). Roger is also the boy who leads the murder of Piggy. He begins with dropping stones onto a catapult. Eventually, as Piggy shouts, “Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, [leans] all his weight on the lever” and launches the rock into cracking his skull and killing him (260). Through

these three examples, we can see Roger’s inherent evilness, which can be seen in the other children in the next example.
The second example from “Lord Of The Flies” that demonstrates the inherent evil of humans is