Situational Irony In Lord Of The Flies

“Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart.”(202) When Ralph and the other boys crash land on the island they are childlike and innocent. They tease each other and pretend they can fly. The island holds zero obstacles to the boys living a perfect life, but their inherent evil corrupts this paradise twisting it into a dystopia. By the end of the novel the boys are living in anarchy and have unleashed their inner beasts. In Lord of the Flies Golding uses situational irony to develop characters presenting the idea that man is inherently evil and when unconstrained by society will do horrible things.
Golding uses situational irony to reveal the inner evil of all the boys on the island. Their evil is first exposed when the boys reenact a pig hunt with Robert as the pig. This is supposed to be a light hearted celebration but it becomes something much worse than it was originally intended. “The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering”(115) for the boys during the reenactment. Ralph was overcome with a desire “to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh.”(114-115) This act shows that all the boys, including their leader, have inner demons that have the power to manipulate a game into an act of violence.

The boys continued to move away from civilization when they ironically chose to follow the person they had just rejected as their leader, Jack.

Jack asks, “whoever wants Ralph not be chief.”(127) When no one agrees Jack gets angry and leaves to form his own group without the constraints of the boys’ society. The boys are seduced by this freedom and leave to join Jack’s group. Ralph calls an assembly to talk about the responsibilities of the island such as keeping the fire burning, but with their new found freedom they refuse to help with the tasks. They respond with, “We shan’t hear it.”(151) Rejecting Ralph and embracing the lawlessness of Jack’s tribe is another step on their continued path away from the rules of

society.
Later in the novel they take a monumental step away from the constraints of society, Golding uses irony to emphasize how the cruelty of the boys evolves into the capability to commit horrific acts including murder. The boys fear an external beast that is causing problems on the island. Simon believes the beast is, “Only us.”(89). In an effort to kill the external beast the boys end up unleashing their own inner beasts. While in a trance chanting, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!”(152) the boys kill Simon, the only one who saw the evil inside them. Unleashing this beast changes the boys especially Jack and his hunters.
Through the irony of a game turning into violence, of the decision to reject Ralph and join Jack, and of unleashing an inner beast to eradicate an external one, Golding proves that man is inherently evil. In Lord of the Flies the boys begin by crash landing on an island innocent and childlike. By the end, these boys expose how once the pressures of civilization are taken away man's inherent evil takes over making them capable of doing cruel things to each other and nature.