William Golding's Lord Of The Flies: An Analysis

During Lord of the Flies, Golding makes many references to the external world and incorporated that into his work to heighten the quality of his book. In this work, the reader is shown different viewpoints of how people perceive the world. The novel shows the innate cruel nature of humans by showing how the children devolved to savagery, how ritualistic behavior affects a person's mentality and perception, and the way leaders try to obtain power. During the chapters, five through nine Golding shows the audience how he imagines the world and uses literary devices and real-life comparisons in his book to see how people's nature affects them.
During this story, we see how all the children try to keep the society but they fail in keeping

order and become barbaric. “‘I’ll blow the conch’ said Ralph breathlessly, ‘and call an assembly,’ ‘We shan’t hear it.’(pp. 151). At the beginning of the story, they came from England in the 1940’s a society where it was not only proper and gentlemanlike to follow the order but also expect to maintain order in their society so it may flourish. While when first on the island Ralph, Piggy, and the choirboys made an effort to be proper by keeping their clothes on as long as possible, even when they were in heat and not even caring about the conch, the ultimate authority on the island. “All right, choir. Take off your togs.” (pp. 23) Although they tried to be proper from the beginning once the choirboys got on the island they asked Jack to take off their clothes and he allowed them. Due to being in an environment they have never been in they needed to rely on something or someone which was the guise of savagery to help them adapt. Golding portrayed their decay into savagery similarly to traditional aboriginal religions that had been looked down upon at that time because they were uncivilized. The boys began to believe that Jack will be their savior that would help them obtain all the meat they desire and they became violent in the process. Similarly, to aboriginal religions, they repeated a chant ‘Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!’ multiple times in the story but it only becomes prevalent in Chapter 9, which shows how they descend into violence and keeps them from realizing the malicious things they do while chanting this phrase, like killing Simon and being able to have no guilt about it.
The reader is shown the extent of the power of psychology just as previously stated but there are other ways Jack manipulates the others without knowing so. “The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed. The beast was on its knees in the center, its arm folded over its face.” (pp.152) Although the ambiance of this scene with a thunderstorm surrounding them and the “beast” in their presence they were not phased at all because when they circled their prey whether pig or beast they learned it was bound to die. They had a conditioned response, meaning that they began to get used to the killings by being exposed to the multiple encounters with the pigs that enabled them to override the fear they had initially. Now instead of being nervous under normal circumstances, they now got pleasure out of killing this time because when they usually made that formation it meant meat but now it meant the defeat of the beast which made them safe on the island. Due to the rituals power over their perception of the situation they actually became savage because they weren’t able to think critically how British boys were expected to, they became what the adults and leaders warned them of if laws were gone but since they didn’t have any adults to uphold the law. The kids thought since they were in this situation it was fine to do whatever they felt like because the conditioning helps them dissociate themselves from their previous expectations of their peers which allowed them to do whatever they pleased because all the kids were partaking in this not just themselves. Their minds word independently in helped them justify what they did because this is what they needed to do to survive without guidance or leaders.
Leaders are able to obtain power by appeasing the most important things to an individual and try to persuade them of how they would be able to provide that whether it be nourishment or security.

“Who wants to join my tribe?... I gave you food and my hunters will protect you from the beast. Who will join my tribe?” (pp. 150). Jack knows that by doing these things and showing his accomplishments as a leader that the people would follow him because those are the direst needs at the moment to the children protection and safety. By doing this he manipulated them because he made the others think how he was the best they were going to have, the kids became complacent instead of demanding more from Jake and Ralph because the boys had thought they were going to die on that island. “We got to get out of this” “What d’you mean?” “Get rescued.” (pp. 165) This conversation was between Piggy and Ralph the ones who said that they would be able to get off the island. He made them accustomed to what he did as a leader then knew when he said those things they would follow him because they’d rather be on the island have and have meat than have diarrhea than being uncomfortable, and have to eat plants while waiting for their rescue. Give what you can take what is needed. He resembled communism in the sense that Marx said that he would be able to provide for them and be able to be there and Jack has used this idea to make himself seem better than Ralph who has provided nothing. In doing this it makes people more likely to follow you because of an irrational fear that all people can’t control is uncertainty because although they were fine under Ralph what if the beast came? Ralph couldn’t provide an essential thing that Jack could security although it was security from the beast it was also the mental security of their well being that allowed Jack to take over as the ruler. Due to his smart maneuverings with his word choice and how he protected his chance to be the only leader and

thus showed how leaders such as these take power and hold it so long because a great fear of people is the thing they themselves can't control.
In Lord of the Flies Golding views many aspects of life and how a person's needs affect how they act in life. He examines savagery, ritualism, and leaders and applies real-life examples to his story to show that how people act in this manner. In doing this he reveals commonalities of people and how we all and not static but dynamic people that are not good or evil. Golding also brings in external influences that happened during the time such as the threat of Communism and World War II that was an imminent threat at the time. He shows how the nature of humans are very adaptable and thus their views and actions are affected by their surroundings and do so in a sadly prudent way.