Throughout history, the act of signaling out an individual or a group, as well as putting the blame on others, scapegoat as per called; have been here for centuries. At every opportunity, certain people perform this act of condemning onto outcasts, as well as people who have vulnerabilities to make them a perfect target. During World War 2, a tenacious leader abused the Jewish people for his own countries failures, as well as killed all the intellectuals that were trying to serve and help bring a commentary on life to their country. However, in everyday life, the act of scapegoating can occur in the smallest form, but can have a huge impact on the individual and the society, making this a very important theme in the Lord of the Flies, by William Golding.
The Lord of the Flies, A book by William Golding, was influenced greatly by the surroundings of the author. His surroundings affected his logic, his emotions, and his credibility. Because of the outside influence he was recorded as saying, “...man produces evil as a bee produces honey...”. In this quote he is stating that all a human will ever do is cause and create evil. I will go over how his pathos, logos, and ethos about governments affected his writing and the characters differences in governments.
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.
It was a day like any other day, but for the boy with fair hair, it would change his life forever. This is the beginning to the novel, by William Golding, that would surpass any other novel. And thus the book begins, marooning a group of English boys on an island, destroying their innocence, forever. This novel is like no other: Exploring the ideas of fear, war, and humanity’s evilness. So let’s begin.
Who is the Winner? War has engulfed humans for centuries. The outcomes of war have either been positive or negative depending on the scenario, however who is the real winner? In the novel, Lord of Flies, by William Golding, conflict leads to chaos because of wanting power.
In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, because of three defining moments, Jack changed the most out of all the boys. The first of the moments that changed him occurred in the beginning of the novel on page 23 when Ralph was chosen to be the chief of the boys instead of Jack. Jack was upset at not being chief, but he still took a position of leadership by making the choir boys the hunters and volunteering to be in charge of them. Ralph says “Jack’s in charge of the choir. They can be-what do you want them to be?’’
A Symbolic Moment Arguably, the conch shell is one of the most symbolic items in the novel; the moment Ralph blows into it, the boys are brought together. It is this pivotal moment that makes Ralph appear to be the clear choice for a leader. It is easy to understand why the boys gravitated towards him, their first sight of Ralph was of him sitting, "the conch trailing from one hand, his head bowed on his knees;" (Golding, 19) a clear image of confidence and strength. The boys are easily swayed by his symbolic power and when it comes time to choose between Ralph and Jack, the majority of the boys rush to support Ralph as their leader. Why did they choose Ralph?
The Webster Online Dictionary defines bullying as, a blustering, browbeating person; especially: one who is habitually cruel, insulting, or threatening to others who are weaker, smaller, or in some way vulnerable tormented by the neighborhood bully. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bully, May 1, 2018) The Lord of The Flies by William Golding is about children that have been stranded on an island, who barely know each other. Throughout the story, there is bullying and fear. William Golding represents this through some of the main characters Piggy, Ralph, Simon and Jack.
“He’s a feral child. No mother, no father, no one to care for him or raise him or teach how to be human” (Rodman Phillbrick). Throughout the novel Lord of the Flies there are many signs of the group of boys changing in drastic ways. If a child is left alone in a forest without society to tell them how to act they will become more instinctual. Reasons to support this theory are the physical changes, emotional changes, and the behavioral changes.
In order to survive, people will do things they wouldn’t normally do or will go to great lengths to do what is necessary to. People will do anything to save themselves rather than trying to save others. Also, things that people will do is they will try to harm you or kill you to survive. People really do take these things serious and you never know how far you are willing to go until you are actually put in that situation. People will do anything to save themselves rather than trying to save everybody else.
“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.” This quote is said by Peter Drucker. The more effort leaders put in the more effort they are going to get out from the people they are leading. The leader might be dis-liked, but being liked isn’t in the job description. Being a leader might not be that hard, but just because they are a leader doesn’t mean they are good.
Elizabeth Norman's book We Band of Angels is about how American Navy nurses helped people and soldiers in WWII. When the Japanese dropped bombs on American base in 1941, the women were in a jungle in Bataan. They had energy and capacity as they set up their hospitals in the jungle. Soon, the wounded and sick started filling up the jungle hospitals, and food began to run to out. After the troops surrendered Bataan to the Japanese, the nurses were taken to Corregidor, where they help soldiers in an underground hospital.
What would life be without evil in the world? Many optimists believe there is an inherent goodness gifted to all people at birth and fundamentally embedded in us that dictates our actions, but the reality is exactly the contrary. People are evil, not because of a desire or choice but out of absolute necessity on account of none of the things we enjoy today would be available or even invented without some evil. Evil, within limitations and with restrictions, is productive for a group of people. Society, with all its art, culture, music, and glory, was created because there was evil present and now works to destroy its very creator through police departments and social initiatives.
It is shocking how quickly people can change from being good to becoming savages. In Lord of the Flies, a plane crashed and some schoolboys got stranded on an island where they have to survive on their own but end up failing and become savages. Chapter 9 concluded with having Simon go out to find the beast and discovers there is no beast; on his way back everybody is dancing in the rain and eating meat, but when they see this figure coming down, they think it’s the beast so they end up killing the beast, which was actually Simon. From the events above, they connect to the theme because fear got inside of them once they saw a dark figure and turned them into bloodthirsty savages.
Everyone will face evil at some point in their lives, but the way the evil is embraced or deflected will differ among every man. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, symbolism is used to communicate the theme of Understanding the Inhumanity/Inherent Evil of Man as represented through the double ended spear, the fire, and the Lord of the Flies. The spear represents the evil inside of humankind and the perception that killing and hurting each other out of anger is acceptable. Fire symbolizes the evil act of stealing to achieve a human wants. Lastly, the Lord of the Flies symbolizes the Inherent Evil of Man through demonstrating that a boy understood that the evil is within them instead of around them, and is not something that could be killed
