Evil is Within Everyone Without thinking, the laws and social rules we abide by every day are actually a fragile barrier keeping the worst of human nature from overtaking modern society. In the allegorical novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a plane full of British school boys is shot down over an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They are stranded without adult supervision or means to communicate with the outside world. This creates the perfect setting for Golding to explore the best and worst of human nature. It is in this setting that Golding illustrates what can happen when laws and rules vanish and human instinct reigns. Although everyone has the capacity to act good, there is also evil within everyone and it is only …show more content…
However, these boys have been taught right and wrong, and they still do horrible acts because of the evil within them. Although Simon may seem like an outlier because he represents goodness and is a Christ-like figure, he is not born good, he just becomes good out of the knowledge that it is right. When Simon is killed, it is out of pure evil and love of death by Jack and his followers. Besides this, there is no other reason for the boys to kill him. Even seemingly good figures like Ralph and Piggy “Found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society” (Golding 152). Although Ralph may be a good leader and Piggy may be smart, they both have evil inside of them and want to be a part of Simon’s murder. Ralph and Piggy are nowhere near being savages at this point, but their love of death still shows, even if they regret it later. Their savagery is just the result of the evil human nature inside of them that is left unchecked by civil society. On the island, the boys do not have the benefit of civilization, so they revert to human nature and instinct for survival. Even though Simon warns them about the evil inside them, their actions still reflect their inherently bad human nature. As the time on the island goes by, the boys kill Simon and Piggy, along with a mother pig, and a well-timed rescue is all that prevents Ralph’s death. Even if people can act good, there is still greed, selfishness, and evil within everyone. It is only through the influence of civil society that the worst of human nature is kept in
The schoolboys were in another frenzy to hunt down Ralph. Ralph knows there is no going back to how they were. “Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true , wise friend Piggy” (Golding 202). Once Ralph was found by the naval officer, he knew that the schoolboys innocence was gone. He knew that Piggy would never come back, and that all of this could've been avoided.
Their lust for excitement drove them to kill an innocent boy. Ralph, felt alone and traumatized by the loss of his friend. He felt isolated when “there was no Piggy to talk sense” (Page 260). Piggy had always been the voice of reason and the only person who stuck with him the entire time they were on the island. The destruction of Ralph and Piggy’s relationship and the murder of Piggy shows the sheer primitiveness of Jack and his
When the boys get stranded on this island they must take care of themselves and try to get rescued. As the boys climb this mountain to get home they face new challenges which resulted them to descend into savagery. With these new challenges of killing the pig for the first time, them breaking the conch, and deaths of Simon and Piggy they to descend into savagery causing them to lose their innocence. After the boys crash landed on the island it was only a matter of time before the boys descend into savagery because lack of leadership, need for survival and loss of innocence. Their first goal on the island was to have fun and get rescued but throughout their stay, they get further away from that.
The events of original evil which ironically issued positive results prove Ralph’s success as an individual in contrast to his responsibilities as a leader. Even though he finds trouble accepting his flaws as an untrusted leader, he uses his beliefs in self-importance to overlook the negative possibilities to his selfishness. Piggy recognizes Ralph’s individuality due to his lack of attention and care toward him concerning the respect of his appearance from the other boys on the island. Ralph’s introduction to the conch open the eyes of the boys to a new way of life and hopeful survival, while Jack’s approach to culture on the island institutes the idea of corruption. It is then distinctive that Ralph, “the being that had blown [the conch][...]was set apart” from the rest of the boys (Golding 22).
Although the boys are stuck on the island for weeks and begin to turn to savagery, one boy, Simon, makes an observation that no one else makes yet. Simon, who is an intuitive and sensitive individual eventually recognizes the darkness that hides within the human heart. When the boys argue about there being a beast on the island, Simon proposes the idea to the group that “maybe it’s only us that we’re afraid of” (Golding 195). Simon tries to suggest that the beast may be something within the boys themselves but to the boys, it’s just easier to fear the beast than to face the reality that they are actually afraid of each other. Towards the end of the novel when Simon and Piggy face death, and Jack’s savage group is about to kill Ralph, a naval officer shows up at the same time Ralph was about to give up and let himself die.
In every society, there always needs to be good. The Lord of the Flies, published in 1954 by William Golding, is a book about a group of young boys who crash on an uninhabited island where the boys fight for survival. In this mess, a dictatorship emerges and a civil war breaks out. Before the tyrant Jack kills Ralph, a boat comes to the island to save them. In this novel, three different characters represent forces of good in society: Piggy, the voice of common sense, represents those who value scientific truth; Simon, an almost Christ-figure, represents those who value right and good; Ralph, the naturally effective leader, represents those who value decency and order.
First, I will be talking about how Ralph, Simon and Piggy represent civilization instead of savagery; throughout the book they do nothing that considers savagery all they ever wanted was to be saved and were attempting to create a organized and safe society. Simon was entirely different from all the other boys, he was kind and caring towards the littluns for example “Simon found for them the fruit they could not reach” (page 57) and was willing to work for the other boys to make it a safe and organized place for example “Simon, he helps.” (page 55). Throughout the book Simon remained unchanged because he was already wise and the only boy on the island that was spiritual and realizes a lot of things while everyone else is
No one can argue that there is a share of good and evil in humanity, but when in a tough situation evil has proven in many cases to beat the
EVIL AS AN INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY IN LORD OF THE FLIES BY WILLIAM GOLDING INTRODUCTION There is a constant tension or conflict between good and evil in the world. At times evil appears to be so dominant and powerful that we may even think evil to be supreme. But, sooner or later the momentary supremacy of the evil gives way to the ultimate triumph of good. We often blame the society or the political system for the evils that are being perpetrated in the world.
Lord of The Flies: Human Nature Are humans instinctively evil? Savage? In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, young boys are left to organize themselves into a society to keep balance and peace on the island. When the society crumbles beneath their feet, one must ask these questions. The downfall and overall plot of the book is largely telling of human nature, and may be a smaller analogy for human nature in itself.
In the novel, Lord of the Flies, the author, William Golding, portrays two different characters through their varying reactions to a death on the island. Ralph and Piggy display contrasting attitudes towards the view of Simon’s death. Since the beginning of the novel, the boys have progressed towards inhumanity and brutality caused by the inner fear of evil that lurks in every human being. The boys have all have come a long way from being protected by adults, to asserting themselves to kill on the island. The morning after Simon’s death, Ralph feels terribly guilty while Piggy reacts ultimately with justification, in that both boys are scared to death of the vicious human society which they are faced with.
The boys interaction with the sow demonstrates their loss of morality through Jack's actions. “Jack held up the head and jammed the soft throat down on the pointed end of the stick … a little blood dribbling down the stick” (Golding 136-137). There was a major use of imagery, which helped to set an ominous mood, in Golding's description of the sow's head being mounted for the beast. Jack uses this act to to his advantage, scaring the boys even further into the places of his devoted savage-servants. Simon's death was one of the boys ultimate losses of morality.
After Piggy dies, Ralph becomes lonely, and regrets all the times he argued against Piggy. At the end of the story, when the boys on the island are finally rescued, Ralph thinks about this again, and reveals real emotion for the first time. The boys were all crowded around the newcomer, “And in the middle of
Guilt takes over Ralph’s body and he is beginning to think that maybe the boys are taking this dispute slightly too far in line with the quote, “I’m frightened. Of us” (Golding 200). Ralph is foreshadowing that something monstrous is about to happen on the island, and that maybe the boys need to reevaluate the problem and fix this before the dilemma gets out of hand. Unfortunately, that is not the case. At the end of the story, the reader can indicate that Ralph has lost his innocence by the quote, “Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of true, wise friend called Piggy” (Golding 261).
Throughout the novel of Lord of the Flies, William Golding provides a profound insight into human nature. Golding builds on a message that all human beings have natural evil inside them. To emphasize, the innate evil is revealed when there’s lack of civilization. The boys are constantly faced with numerous fears and eventually break up into two different groups. Although the boys believe the beast lives in the jungle, Golding makes it clear that it lurks in their hearts.