How Does Golding Present The Evil In Lord Of The Flies

The Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel about a group of boys stranded on an island with no adults and no rules. Golding believes that humans all have a capability to do wrong, and through The Lord of the flies portrays how certain situations make a human’s capacity for evil more prominent. Golding shows how the boys’ civilization deteriorates from being good British kids to murderous savage people. The novel can easily be connected to the Stanford Prison Experiment, and how what happened to the boys on the island can happen outside the realm of fiction. Golding shows the reader what the Lord of the Flies is in the book and how the namesake of the book is found in all of us.

Mankind is, by nature, an evil, vile, and savage species. This is nowhere more apparent than in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a novel detailing the adventures of a group of shipwrecked British schoolboys, who must survive on an uncharted Pacific island, while seeking rescue and order. Golding’s exploration of Man’s inherent wickedness is no more apparent in Chapter Nine, “A View to a Death”, in which the group of boys, in a riotous ceremony, brutally murder one of their own. The many events of the book lead to one conclusion: In Lord of the Flies, William Golding propagates the idea that Mankind is inherently inclined towards savagery and evil, which is conveyed via symbolism, juxtaposition, and foreshadowing.

     Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel that represents a microcosm of society in a tale about children stranded on an island. Of the group of young boys there are two who want to lead for the duration of their stay, Jack and Ralph.  Through the opposing characters of Jack and Ralph, Golding reveals the gradual process from democracy to dictatorship from Ralph's democratic election to his lack of law enforcement to Jack's strict rule and his violent law enforcement.

In the book, Lord of the Flies, William Golding writes of the beast as a symbol that represents the savage-like urges that lie within all souls of humans. The civilization among the community of boys continues to stifle the beast. Savagery emerges when the suppressing of the beast comes to a halt, and the beast is set free. The savages worship the beast. As Jack’s clan convert to such a creature, they live for the beast and leave sacrifices for it to assure their safety. The Lord of the Flies, contains the theme of savagery and the beast, and is shown through the characters’ actions and words.

William Golding shows a tremendous amount of violence played through Jack in the book. Jack gets described as someone that is obsessed with hunting, however, he had more than a obsession. Throughout the story, Lord of the Flies, Jack is very violent and his violence transforms him into a vicious person. Jack becomes deeply obsessed with hunting right after he gets on the island.

Golding wanted to reveal to the reader his point of view and theory of human nature. He wanted to make it clear that each member of humankind has a dark side, which is portrayed

¨Group fragmentation, leadership struggles, personal hatred, theft, abuse, frenzied violence, the discarding of empathy and compassion – these are all things that afflicted both Golding's schoolboys and many real survivor groups¨ (jenny tabakoff). The novel The Lord of the Flies shows a group of school boys stranded on a deserted island. The island has no adults to watch over them so they must survive on their own. With there many different personalities and ideas of civilization things get a little out of hand. In the novel, “The Lord of the Flies”,written by William Golding the characters symbolize different sides of humanity: Ralph represents order; Jack illustrates chaos; and Piggie symbolizes intelligence.

In the book, “The Lord of The Flies”, by William Golding, an increase in violence is widely demonstrated through several literary elements. These include the following: characterization, plot development, mood and foreshadowing. We quickly learn the intensity levels the character’s have and their personalities through each tiny action they carry out in the book. Terms come to worse as enemies are made and different oppositions and sides are taken.

First of all, the hunt of the very first piglet is a demonstration of the boys’ civil habits that are still engraved in them from their home lives. Ralph, Jack, and Simon are on their hunt for their first pig on the island when they come across squealing sounds that lead them to their prey. After they stare at the piglet for a while, they have the chance to kill it but Jack decides against it. Jack didn’t want to kill the piglet “because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into live flesh; because of the unbearable blood” (Golding 29). Jack attempts to cover up his reasoning by saying that he was thinking of a good spot to stab the pig, though Ralph and Simon knew why he hadn’t. The boys were still living in a civil society on the island as they had a leader, rules, and they all got along for the most part, so the thought of killing a pig was terrifying and unrealistic for Jack. Evidently, Jack is embarrassed in front of the boys because he did not kill their chance at food. During a meeting later that day, the other boys are asking about the pigs on the island, and Jack and Ralph are explaining why they couldn’t kill it. Jack interrupts Ralph, and tells the boys that the pig ran away “‘Before I could kill it - but - next time’” (Golding 31)! Jack says this in an aggressive tone as he is defending himself and proving he is more than capable to get them meat. The boys have not yet adapted to a life filled with chaos and savagery, so they are still hesitant about harming animals since they never had experienced anything like that back in England. However, the boys’ attitudes towards bloodletting start to become more realistic as their lives on the island progress to a life of evil.

Knowing William Golding took part of World War II, we as readers can understand why Golding wrote Lord of the Flies and other survival-fiction novels. When the story was released in 1954, Golding described his book as "an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature." It is unmistakably obvious to anyone who reads this book that Golding is trying to exaggerate the good and evil in the boys on the island. Throughout the book, we learn that people, including children, are not pure goodness. Deep inside there is an evil constantly trying to rise to the surface of our minds. Golding proves that eventually the evil within us will destroy us. Golding saw in World War II what

Throughout Lord of the Flies, Golding shows his views of the inherent evil of humans. He shows how humans can be in such a savage state, practically mimicking the way of life of their prehistoric ancestors. He exemplifies this with acts of carnage carried on by the young stranded children. It all started with a slight urge to hunt down a pig and then continued on to murdering another human being. Golding shows his views best at the end of the book with the boys being rescued by a Navy crew, which would go on to war it self.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a classic novel and portrays just how the society surrounding us can corrupt our once pure nature No one is born a killer, no one is born with an intense compulsion to kill, the island that the boys are stranded on has a very unusual, corrupting society; A society that erodes the boys innocence through the power struggle between Jack and Ralph, readers see the transfer from innocent to savagely through the hunting and Piggy’s death.

This demonstrates that Piggy, the symbol of intellect, has fell victim to a crushing blow caused by Roger and his lever contraption that was crafted by Jack. Despite the appalling consequence of their actions “Mother Nature” remained content while the boys balanced on the “neck of the island, the ledge skirting the rock,” (174). Yet after Simon died as a result of resembling the “small” Beast no one takes the blame for his death. Simon and Piggy became the ones that were given back to the island. Jack is the farthest from resentful and instead of paying his respects and trying to receive forgiveness for his heinous crime he goes on a hunt to which he rapes a sow by impalement and sticks its head on a twice speared stick as a gift for the Beast and later a plan to kill Ralph.

The Lord of the Flies by William Golding is an allegory that explores the instinctual evil humans possess and how this evil manifests into our societies. The book demonstrates this through young boys who are stranded on an island due to a plane crash. Despite their best efforts, the lack of adult guidance inhibits the boys from maintaining an orderly society. The boys turn to their survival instincts, many of which are evil. The lack of order exposes the internal savagery within the boys, resulting in an understanding of the flaws within all humanity. The Lord of the Flies uses the innocence of young boys to show the societal impact of human errors through their lack of adult supervision, the desire to inflict violence, and the need for authority over others.

Although the boys would prefer to have fun and play games, they follow Ralph’s rules at first. This order is maintained until Ralph loses his leadership role to Jack. After providing, or bribing, the boys with juicy pig meat, Jack asks “’Who’ll join my tribe and have fun?’” (211). This lure of enjoyment along with the promise of more food sways the boys to follow Jack. With the demise of Ralph’s leadership and under the leadership of Jack, the boys begin to turn towards savagery.