Devolution Of Society In Lord Of The Flies

In the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of boys crash on an island with no adult supervision. On the island, they make an attempt to set up a civilization. Although successful at first, there came an eventual devolution where their society went into madness. When the rules ceased to exist, when the development of humans disappeared, and when the advancements that society had achieved vanished, their civilization and sanity was completely gone. The devolution of society starts with the beast, as the beast symbolizes internal darkness and evil. The first mention of the beast was done by birthmark boy, “‘He says he saw the beastie. It came and went away again an’ came back and wanted to eat him,”(36). This started to instill fear in

After the whole fire fiasco, the boy's start to hunt, with Jack as their hunting leader,“‘If you’re hunting, sometimes you catch yourself feeling as if-‘He flushed suddenly. ‘There's nothing in it of course. Just a feeling,’”(53). Noticeably, Jack has grown an obsession with hunting, he can't put the feeling into words. It's the primitive instinct that is slowly becoming unleashed. This is further proven, when he focuses more on hunting and having fun instead of helping Ralph and Simon set up shelters. He is also only wearing shorts and a knife belt. Although easily overlooked, the author uses clothing as a symbol to show also show who has reverted back to their primal selves. In the beginning, all the boys wore all their clothing, which shows that they weren't used to the island lifestyle yet. Another sign of society being forgotten is Roger. When Roger was throwing rocks at Henry, something he knew he shouldn't have done, he ended up enjoying it,“Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. Roger’s arm was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in