Abuse Of Power In Lord Of The Flies

In the novel The Lord of the Flies, Golding begins to expresses the struggle of mankind through word choice. At first, words often grouped with discovery were used to express the arrival of small sea creatures. They had come in “questing” to find new food, not just crawling but “scavenging over the beach”. When a littleun, Henry, finds them, words specific to power are used to express his interest in controlling them. Phrases like “excising control over living things” show that he has joy in being responsible for something living. The pressure he puts increases as he “talked to them” but very quickly began “ordering them” as he has that innate response to take over a weaker subject. It is described that power made him not just content but “absorbed beyond mere happiness”. The weakness he is able to exploit only pulls him in rather than stopping him. Although he is satisfied after trapping them, it only gave him “the illusion of mastery” perhaps suggesting that not everything is as it seems.

He uses descriptive words to show Henry’s abuse of power. When the creatures come on land, they are “tiny transparencies” looking for any “strewn detritus of landward life” making them seem weak and small. Henry, finding this “fascinating”, decides to shut them in. The “little runnels” he makes to “crowd with creatures” gives the reader futher description of the traps he makes. To further exert his power, he uses his own body and “his footprints become bays” to further imprison the harmless creatures. His pleasure with this new control is further described as he is “squatted on his hams at the water’s edge” even while the sun “emptied down invisible