Lord of the Flies Nature of Man

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.

“If you mean going the right way, we’ll hunt(111).” Jack taunts Ralph into helping him hunt. By doing that Jack gets Ralph to help him. Jack frequently manipulated the boys into doing things for his own personal benefit. Jack has total control and implements his beliefs in the other boys. Even if a boy in his tribe didn’t agree with him, his tactics kept them from speaking up. Peer pressure influenced his tribe tremendously. Jack represented a dictator throughout the novel.

The descent into savagery and evil that overcomes the boys is first distinguishable in Jack. His craving for power using evil makes him a clear bully. This is seen when Jack bullies Piggy over the debate of why they let the fire go out:

Human defects and the defects of society have been deep rooted into civilization ever since man has been on the face of the earth. The Lord of The Flies by William Golding , in the genre of allegory, shows us how human innocence in a group of young boys is replaced with a savagery so deep that the boys wreak havoc and in a way, prove to be no more than bloodthirsty savages. The Lord Of the Flies features evil and shows how the defects of society lead to tragedy. The Lord of The Flies tells us a story which tells us the story of how cruel and savage humankind can be and how innocence , pure and good , can be destroyed through evil.

Lord of the Flies was written in spite of Golding's consideration of human evil, a topic that involves an examination not only of human nature but also its causes. What causes someone to be evil? How does someone become so terrifyingly vicious? Is a person’s development affected more by their genetics or their experiences? This is the old-age controversial topic of nature vs. nurture.

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding crafts a story of a group of ordinary British schoolboys that are stranded on an island in order to investigate how humans can return to their primal state if they are left without order to bind them. Left without the leadership and guidance of their parents, they attempt to mimic the ordered and civilized society that they had come from, but slowly, they succumb to their primitive desires and impulses, leading them descend into savagery. Throughout this elaborate work, Golding forges a political allegory that demonstrates how the defects in human nature contribute to the downfall of a democracy and allow people to be lured into a totalitarian regime or anarchy.

In our society we have our system for power set up making the understanding of who is in charge easy; However, when the boys are stranded on an island they are forced to come up with their own system, causing rivalries and corrupting rights and values. Before being stranded on an island Jack was an innocent, well-behaved child, however, when thrown into a foreign place with no society and no system of power it is very easy to destroy all of your innocence when obtaining most power. Jack was a hunter and was in charge of all the hunter, he eventually made his own tribe and almost everyone followed him, giving him a mass amount of control. Golding shows that Jack uses his power in ways only beneficial to him, easily seen when the remainder of Ralphs tribe approach Jacks and see him, “ painted up and wearing garland around his neck” (54). Jack uses his power to idolize himself and make the other

Through the lens of the Lord of the Flies, we think to ourselves, Are we as humans inherently evil? In this novel, Golding commonly flips to discussing whether humans are inherently evil. Lord of the Flies gives a glimpse of how a group of boys behave in an uncivilized environment where civilized standards are not met. Throughout “Lord of the Flies”, this novel covers the idea that the boys are savage on an empty island. However, later on in the novel, the story emphasizes that evil can be the result of external influences and a lack of societal expectations.

In the beginning of the book when Ralph was voted chief he counted the show of hands and stated “I’m chief then.” (23) Then the boys broke into applause, the freckles on Jacks face disappeared under a blush of mortification. This is the turning point of Jacks personality and he starts to rebel against societies rules. A few of the boys tried very hard to do the right thing and keep some semblance of a normal society with rules and morals, the way they were taught to behave

While the boys are on the island, they eventually split up into two groups. Ralph, is represented as good because he wants to do things in a civilised order and not harm people. Meanwhile, Jack is represented as evil as he doesn’t like doing things the “boring way” which proves he isn’t mature enough to act like an adult and solve matters like an adult would when no adults are around to support them. Jack’s attitude changes the way he is his tribe because who are savages. Jack keeps getting hungry and greedy for power as a leader of his tribe. Whoever stands in his way, he will kill them which conducted him as a savage. “…We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all,

Human nature is quite fragile. In William Golding's book, The Lord of the Flies, Golding portrays the potential of human nature to quickly descend from an ideal society to a primitive one. All human beings contain a mix of good and evil, any of which can be brought out under certain conditions. Golding suggests that there is a struggle between the inner savage of human beings. On the one hand humans have a desire for power, low morals, cruelty and egoism that are in the eternal conflict with governing laws, decent culture and decent morality. Both men believe that the rules of civilization can easily be broken down to expose the savage human nature.

Without moral obligation or rules to be governed by, the absolute rudimentary nature of man would be on display for all to see. What would we perceive? In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, that is the thought that is pondered. This illustrious novel wrestles with ideas of survival, the struggle for power, and how our human nature affects that. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, man’s immoral, vile, and savage nature is put on display for all to see.

In the words of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.” In other words, humans harbor an ever present looming evil nature within themselves. Evil is the force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin, or the wicked or immoral part of someone. This concept of inner evil rising to the surface permeates William Golding’s dystopian novel Lord of the Flies, that evil exists in every human, proven through the characterization of the marooned boys. There is foreshadowing of the dangers of the boys’ inner immorality from one of the boys, Simon. As the novel progresses, evil starts asserts itself as the boys cast off their innocence and humanity, and turning against each other. Even the

    Despite the progression of civilization and society's attempts to suppress man's darker side, moral depravity proves both indestructible and inescapable; contrary to culturally embraced views of humanistic tendencies towards goodness, each individual is susceptible to his base, innate instincts. In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, seemingly innocent schoolboys evolve into bloodthirsty savages as the latent evil within them emerges. Their regression into savagery is ironically paralleled by an intensifying fear of evil, and it culminates in several brutal slays as well as a frenzied manhunt. The graphic consequence of the boys' unrestrained barbarity, emphasized by the

James Madison once said, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary”. But men are not angels and there is a need for government, because men are not inherently good. Throughout the novel, Lord Of The Flies, William Golding successfully portrays his view of human nature as inherently evil by the actions and thoughts of the boys who are stranded on an island. The catholic church’s standpoint that human nature is inherently good is overpowered by William Golding’s view. William’s view is expressed throughout the Lord Of The Flies through the savagery in the book, the desire to kill/ hunt, and the loss of their innocence.