The term evil can be defined as savage behaviours followed by strong desires. In both Lord of the Flies(LOTF) by William Golding and Jekyll and Hyde(J&H) written by Robert Louis Stevenson, evil is portrayed as cruel and selfish power that can make innocent boys and a well-respected gentleman even commit violence without feeling guilt. As their pursuit for physical satisfaction overweighs moral principles, evil emerges and completely dominates some of these novel’s characters. LOTF portrays how evil transforms innocent boys into vicious savages away from civilisation, while J&H depicts how evil takes over one individual completely. This essay will explore how the authors illustrate evil by comparing and contrasting the settings, characters and how evil itself takes over the good side of human.
The settings of both LOTF and J&H reflect
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In LOTF, evil begins to take over all the boys except Ralph who survives to the end and Simon and Piggy who get killed. In chapter two, a sudden fire breaks out on the island and ‘a tree exploded(explodes)… like a bomb.’ This simile ‘like a bomb’ shows the force of explosion and reminds the reader of the war in outside world. With the fire, ‘tall swathes of creepers rose for a moment into view, agonized, and went down again.’ The author’s use of personification of tree’s feeling allows the reader to sense the pain and agony of the nature, creating a foreboding sense of what will happen to the boys. This dominance is particularly evident as ‘a mile square of forest was savage with smoke and flame.’(Ch 2) By personifying the forest as ‘savage’, the reader can infer that the fire is symbolic of the spread of evil and savagery on the island. Nearing the end of the story, the fire engulfs the entire island when Ralph tries to escape from Jack’s tribe. Using the fire as a symbol of evil, this shows that the boys are completely under the control of savagery, far away from