William Golding Lord Of The Flies Persuasive Essay

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Farzad Imdad Mrs. Kirkpatrick English 10 Honors Period 7 4/5/24 The Appeal of Darkness As a man who lived a bizarre life, William Golding had an interesting perspective that helped him shape his greatest piece of literature: The Lord of the Flies. Growing up as a child, Golding was ignored by his family and had no friends. He would grow up to become an English teacher of unruly, disobedient boys. Unsatisfied with his career, he would enlist in the British Navy to participate in the horrors of WW2. Using his experiences in life with his controversial yet enigmatic personality, Golding expresses his view on humanity with a story of young boys being stranded on a deserted island. In the novel Lord of the Flies, Golding expresses his daunting …show more content…

In Lord of the Flies, Jack, leader of the hunters, argues with Ralph, leader of the island. On the topic of responsibility, Jack exclaims, “Bollocks to the rules! We're strong – we hunt! If there's a beast, we'll hunt it down! We'll close in and beat and beat and beat” (Golding 83). Through disobeying Ralph and keeping away from the island's duties, Jack displays his interest in hunting and killing over the island's order and civilization. This demonstrates his growing desire for power as he begins to enforce his own demands onto his hunters, successfully establishing a rule focused on chaos and savagery. Through Jack, Golding highlights the basis of power and how human nature is intertwined in it through aspects such as hunting and savagery. In an experiment held by Stanford, regular people were placed in a position of authority and power over fake prisoners to simulate the behavioral aspects of a prison environment. By the end of the experiment, “guards became cruel and tyrannical, while a number of the prisoners became depressed and disoriented” (Tikkanen). Even with the prisoners being completely innocent, this experiment showed that belief and prejudice in one affects the actions that are made towards them. Additionally, this experiment also highlights the corrupt nature of power and how power influences regular people to make cruel and unjust decisions. Even being in a position of order, having too much power over others is corrupt and can often change the best of people. In conclusion, humanity's attraction to power drives human nature to

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