Savagery In Lord Of The Flies Argumentative Essay

Metaphorically, a snowball effect is a process that starts from an initial state of small significance and builds upon itself, becoming more serious, and also perhaps resulting in danger or disaster. William Golding’s allegorical novel, Lord of the Flies, is a quintessence for this figurative concept. The novel introduces the audience with a plane crash that forces a group of young males to struggle to survive on an uninhabited island. Many obstacles also erupt from themselves in forms of mentality during their stay. New discoveries are made regarding their general psychological characteristics, feelings, and behavioral traits. Numerous findings link to human nature’s hidden potential of savagery is limitless once it is unleashed.
One might

deny, shun, or could be simply unaware of the savagery that humans are capable of. Amid a gathering of British boys, Jack bears the conch and declares, “We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything” (42). Jack blatantly denies that they are barbaric. However, he exempts beast-like behavior as the novel progresses, contradicting his statement, “He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling” (64). While Jack busies himself with face painting, a mask of savagery surfaces. Without knowing, he displays subtle signs of developing atrocity. As soon as savagery is sparked, it is prone to snowballing into a bottomless abyss.
Once the first step is taken on a path of savagery, there is a tendency to continue onwards.

Without realizing their state of mentality, they slip into acts of inhumanity when they target their schoolmate, “All at once, Robert was screaming and struggling with the strength of frenzy. Jack had him by the hair and was brandishing his knife. The chant rose ritually, as at the last moment of a dance or a hunt” (114). Following the unsuccessful boar hunt, the urge to complete the task is transferred onto a human being. They halt before Robert is playfully murdered but their potential of savagery remains boundless as time weakens their

sanity.
Humans can do anything as long as they set their mind to it and in this case, it involves homicide with a psychotic mentality.

Two hunters have the goal of obtaining pork along with something else, “Jack was on top of the sow, stabbing downward with his knife. Roger found a lodgment for his point and began to push till he was leaning with his whole weight” (135). Originally, all the boys wanted meat and they achieved it in a brutal manner. The minds of Jack and Roger are clouded by the desire of meat and sexual practices and their acts are emphasized with an advanced level of savagery. However, there is still potential of barbarity that has not quite reached, “At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws” (153). The beast was not killed, it was their own comrade, Simon. Being in the mind-set of savagery without purposefully choosing to resulted in a devastating murder of a human and an

animal.
The snowball resembles the size of a pea at the peak of a mountain. Gravity causes it to roll down through the forests and glades. Near the end of the mountain lies yeti-sized ball of ice particles. The savagery of the British boys begin minute and unnoticeable. An unidentified beast initiates the growth. Crude murders are committed. These two examples relate to human nature’s hidden potential of savagery and display that it is limitless once it is unleashed. The massive snowball and the obscene killings could potentially continue onwards to an endless downwards spiral. In life, countless models of this theme is found and we see that human nature is not perfect. Lack of authority contributes profoundly to human nature’s flaws. Ultimately, we cannot avoid the savage beast that is within us.