Chaos In Lord Of The Flies

William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, arouses the conversation of human nature in his compelling novel, explaining his view of humanity. Human nature is a very complicated aspect, in the idea that generally, everything devolves into either chaos, or law and order. Many question whether or not chaos is directly related to evil, or if it’s related to another aspect. At the end of Golding’s novel, the island has been completely engulfed in flames, and chaos has erupted amongst the boys. This chaos is not due to the boys being inherently evil, instead the root of the chaos is fear. Fear creates a natural instinct of defensiveness, often resulting in betrayal. Often times defensiveness provokes separation from others. One such example

At the beginning of the novel, the fear of being alone in the unknown, caused the “little uns” to assume that there was a beast. Fear influences our impenetrable imagination and masks our realistic thoughts. The boys’ imagination was inflicted by fear, creating a fictitious beast that horrified the boys. This absurd mindset impacted and controlled how the boys acted. Similarly, Simon’s appalling death was induced by the boys’ fear. As Simon appeared from the depth of the island shouting that there was no beast, the other boys were so engrossed in their minds, they did not rationalize that Simon was not the beast. Otherwise, his survival would have occured. With fear of the beast the only thing pulsing in their bodies, the boys leapt out at whatever posed a threat, attempting to kill the fear that gnawed at the corners of their mind, which was mistaken as Simon. Subsequently, preventable events were induced by fear, resulting in irrational thinking. Some may argue that the boys are inherently evil. Their actions may be associated with what one may consider evil, however, fear caused the boys to transform into barbaric savages that they are not, which regulated their actions and thoughts. For instance, when Ralph is running away from the other boys at the end of the novel, everything was driven by fear, more specifically, what one could do to another. This chaos was due to Ralph’s fear of the other boys and how their fear composed their behavior, not that the boys are inherently evil. Therefore, fear is the root of the