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Ignorance In Lord Of The Flies Analysis

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“Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.” These wise words spoken by Plato in the fourth century still apply to those written by William Golding in 1954. This book is a riveting tale of death and destruction, the right amount for us to question our morals and wonder if we are only animals in denial. Lord of the Flies tells a story of a group of boys stranded on an island, with no adult supervision and no rules. The boys' effort to form a society is in vain, as it soon falls into disarray and death. It proves that humans are savage and violent, which makes civic order impossible to sustain. One important reason that human beings are basically violent and savage is that depending on your circumstances or surroundings you can lose what civility …show more content…

Somewhere in humans’ minds there is something that remembers their savage roots. The island brings out those forgotten traits because it required them to have to complete more animal-like tasks (like hunting). The lack of parent and adult guidance made it so the boys could run wild and they didn’t have to worry about their actions being punished and/or watched. The text’s point is that a person doesn’t just “go savage”. The instinctual part of their brain will always remember the early stages of humanity, when humanity was more widely recognized as savage. The island brings out those hidden instincts because it required them to have to complete more animal-like tasks (like hunting). The lack of parent and adult guidance made it so the boys could run wild and they didn’t have to worry about their actions being punished and/or watched.. Of course, it is possible to disagree with the view that humans evolved from wild animals and we will always have some savage in us because of it and instead argue that it has been millions of years since we were savage and therefore lost it somewhere along the way. However, the weight of the evidence is on the other side. What must be remembered is that at the beginning of the book we see Jack as civil and proper, by the end of the book, after …show more content…

Since our resources are finite, we will soon be forced to start over, but without technology, we have no reason not to become savage. The text says that at the beginning of the book, everyone was civil. However, because of the circumstances and problems they face being on an island with no outside contact, all the boys (with the exception of a few) become extremely savage, and they lose all chances of staying civil. The text’s point is that as time passes, the boys are able to cope less and less, turning them into savages and making civil order impossible to sustain because of their state of mind. They didn’t have their minds in the right place and were unable to cooperate civilly. But, nonetheless, one can disagree with the argument that as time passes, humans turn more savage thus making civil order impossible to sustain and instead argue that with all of our technological advancements we aren’t becoming more savage, but in fact more civilized. This is a good point, but the evidence is on our side. What must be taken away from this is that we try to conceal our savage nature with advancements in STEM. We try to de-animalize ourselves so much, with humans staying with their parents long after animals would be on their own. We keep creating new iPhones and computers,

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