Sam Brandt English 10 Honors Ms. Hedrick 8 October 2010 Fundamentally Virtuous As Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung once said, “As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of a mere being.” In other words, man’s purpose in life is to help one another find the good in a world of malevolence. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, it becomes apparent to the reader the contrast in shades between the good and the bad. Each person here on Earth has two parts of his or her being: light and dark. It is the side people choose which defines them. Take for example Ronald Reagan. He could have easily continued with his successful career as a movie star. But instead, he chose to move …show more content…
The conch symbolizes a variety of things, like power, sanity, leadership, and civilization. The author writes, “and most obscurely, yet most powerfully, there was the conch” (Golding 22). Had Ralph not discovered the conch, who know what kind of chaos the small island might have experienced. The shell is revered and respected, even when the two rivals are fighting. Even the little kids know that when someone is holding the conch, they are not to speak. The shattering of the conch shell symbolizes the end of sanity on the island. Similarly, Ralph, Piggy, and Simon all symbolize different parts of ‘light’. Ralph is the one who keeps stability. He is the leader; he keeps order as much as possible. Piggy is the brains behind the vast majority of the operations on the island. He is clever, and without him, there is a high chance the condition on the island would have deteriorated much more quickly. As for Simon, he shows a sort of connection to nature, an innocence. For instance, “ The candle- buds opened their wide white flowers glimmering under the light that pricked down from the first stars. Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island” (Golding 57). Simon is arguably the most agreeable individual on the island. He does not fight or quarrel, and the reader often sees him doing nice things for the other boys on the island. Without this ancient bond with nature and goodness in society as a whole, one would find that the world would be full of
Humans have a monster inside of them that is subdued by society, and if society is taken away, then that “monster” will consume them. This is true for most people, but not all humans are like that. One of the most notable humans to over come the “monster” is Simon, a character from the book “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding. The story is set on an island in the Pacific Ocean. A plane full of British schoolboys crash lands on an island and they’re stranded there with no adults, no society, and no rules. Simon is one of the few characters that stay sensible and good throughout the story. He has a sixth sense about things happening around him, he is kindhearted, and he faints a lot which give the appearance of him being weak.
Lord of the Flies is a novel written in 1954 by William Golding. A plane carrying a group of British citizens trying to escape the nuclear war gets shot down and lands on a deserted tropical island. The only survivors are children ranging from the age of six to twelve-year-olds. The younger children are nick named “littluns” and the older children are nick named “biguns”. At first, they celebrate their freedom from the war but then they begin to realize there aren't any adults to supervise them, they don't have food, they don't have shelter, and they are stranded on a deserted tropical island. One of the characters Piggy is classified as smart but is fat chubby and has asthma so he isn't capable of much things. “ “My auntie told me not to
What do you picture in your mind when someone mentions a beast? Fangs? Claws? That is what the castaways believe the beast to look like on the island in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. The story follows several school boys who have crashed onto an exotic island. They elect a leader, Ralph, and they break up into groups: the hunters, the “littluns”, and the hut builders. Soon the “littluns" become frightened of a beast that no one has seen, and it becomes an obsession of the islanders. They interpret the beast in many ways, saying it comes from the water, the sky, and one of the boys even suggested that the beast was themselves. So, what is the beast? The beast could be a representation of war, fear, or human savagery.
Lord Of The Flies is a story about these kids stranded on a island in the Pacific
The boys chant, “Kill the beast, cut his throat spill his blood!” in chapter 9, while they horrifically murder Simon because they believe him to the beast. Golding never properly explains what exactly the beast is, though his heavy use of symbolism can give many clues. Whatever the beast is, it’s horrible enough to drive the boys to murder. Throughout Lord of the Flies, the beast takes many forms: it begins as fear, then morphs into war, which then combine to demonstrate the savagery of human nature.
Everyone else has become a savage. Is Ralph on his way of becoming one too?
The Lord of the Flies is a story about a group of boys who are stranded on an island. There aren’t any adults with them because the plane they were on had crashed and the pilot died, he had been the only adult with them. That main character Ralph is elected chief of the boys and is supposed to be in charge, but finds it hard to keep control. Ralph believes the most important thing is to keep the fire going, so that if a ship passes by they can get rescued. As the story goes on dissent begins to form among the other boys. The leader of this dissent was Jack. He had wanted to have control from the beginning and was fed up with Ralph’s rules.
In the story “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, he shows how the boys lost all innocence and civilization. The boys went from having innocent child minds to taking lives of other people, acting savage, and losing all civilization due to problems on the island. The boys had forgotten where they came from and became savage in order to survive; it was the need of survival that caused the loss of innocence among the boys.
In the novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, a group of English boys in their adolescence are stranded on an island. They crash-land while being evacuated because of an atomic war, so the boys must learn to cooperate with each other in order to survive. The boys are civil at first, but the bonds of civilization unfold as the rapacity for power and immediate desires become more important than civility and rescue. The conflict between Ralph, the protagonist, and Jack, the antagonist, represents the conflict between the impulse to civilization and the impulse to savagery, respectively. In Lord of the Flies, Golding uses Ralph and Jack’s struggle for power to show that greed and lust for power can corrupt the best
Write an analysis of the opening chapter of Lord of the Flies. How effective is it at introducing the characters, concerns and language of the novel?
wanted to be leader and thought he was the best for the job. Already he had
William Golding, author of the classic novel, Lord of the Flies, had a number of life experiences that impacted his view of the world and led to the creation of his book. The most prominent experience he has had might of been his time spent in the Royal Navy, which revealed a darkness in himself and his writing. This darkness was portrayed by the beast by aspects of War, Fear, and Savagery.
When a group of children become stranded on a deserted island, the rules of society no longer apply to them. Without the supervision of their parents or of the law, the primitive nature of the boys surfaces. Consequently, the boys live without luxury that could have been obtained had they maintained a society on the island. Instead, these young boys take advantage of their freedom, and life as they knew it deteriorates. Lord of the Flies is influenced by the author's life and experiences. Golding's outlook on life changes, due to his heavy involvement in W.W.II, to his current philosophy that "The shape of society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual, and not on any political system
Finally, I am finished with middle school. Anxiously thinking about the first day of high school, I knew that it would be hectic and wild, but I was ecstatic. Of course, the night before I could not sleep. I lay awake dreaming about how my first day at John Paul II will go. How will it be meeting new people and seeing old friends from last year? Will high school be hard? Will I get lost? I kept thinking about the unknown and worst possible outcomes. My first day of high school was unexpected.
Could civilization live a normal and stable life, without any rules and orders to obey? Could you picture, New York City, with no laws to follow and everyone doing as they please? Just imagine the disasters that we will experience. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, we see how each individual character reacts differently to the exposure of complete freedom from an organized society. Also, awe see how this separation from a structural society causes chaos among all these different characters.