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Evil In Lord Of The Flies

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Society Cannot Make a Person Good
As people grow up, they look to their parents and community when forming their understanding of behavior. When the constraints of society are eliminated, the raw human nature takes over. This is a major subject in William Golding's novel The Lord of the Flies. All social restraints are eliminated when the schoolboys in The Lord of the Flies are dumped on a remote island. Exposing that their morals are limited to society, and showing the truly good from the bad. While some characters, such as the leader of the group, Ralph, still seem to have their morals, Ralph is human. William Golding not only believes human nature is instinctively evil, but that every man is born that way. Golding describes The Lord of the Flies as “an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature” (Spitz par. 1). One boy, Simon, has no problem being taken away from society, and never stoops to the level that the other boys do. Simon is innately good and Ralph is only good because of society. Simon has no savagery within himself so he is not changed by being free from social moderation. “All of the boys, so it is argued, removed from the pinfold of civilisation, inevitably regress to savagery. But Simon doesn’t regress to savagery” …show more content…

When he makes the signal fire, while it will help everyone, he is truly doing it because benefits himself. “[Ralph] attempts to control Jack and engage his energy for the tending of the fire” (Henningfeld par. 9). Another incidence of this is the building of the huts. While it seems that he is doing it for everyone, no one else really seems cares about it. On the other hand, Simon has numerous scenarios of helping others with nothing in return. One occasion discussed above, is Simon helping the littluns. He did not do that to benefit himself or make his life easier. That shows the true kindness and unselfishness he has within

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Simon’s death serves as a way to prove that people are more evil than good. Simon was in the forest, and learned how the beast was false and didn't exist. When he comes out of the forest at night, Jack and his group ritualistically murder him. Even though at first it seems like it's a mistake, a later quote

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In all ways Simon would have been the best leader not only because he cares about everyone, but he also puts everyone before himself. He even cares about the littluns. Proof of this is in the middle of page 56 Simon is described as “Then, amid the roar of bees in the afternoon sunlight, Simon found for the fruit they could not reach... passed them back down to the endless, outstretched hands. " I chose this quote because it shows how Simon goes out of his way to help out the littluns when no one else would and this makes the littluns look up to Simon and follow his role.

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Simon is one of the most loyal characters in the novel. Simon is the lone one that helps Ralph build the shelters when the other boys are distracted hunting pigs. When everyone else left Ralph to join Jack’s tribe, Simon, along with Piggy, stays loyal to Ralph. Simon is regarded as one of the wisest and intelligent people in the novel. His wiseness is proven when the character realizes the truth about the beast.

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In Lord of the Flies, William Golding conveys using rhetorical devices that everyone has innate evil and when evoked, it overcomes one’s sense of civility and humanity. The author creates a scenario whereby he places a group of boys onto an uninhabited island and examines how the group are effected over time. Through the course of the novel there is a considerable change in mentality throughout the group. The change is due to the lack of a strict and functioning society and ultimately the boys have degenerated into primitivity. In addition, the boys are becoming more evil, embodying evil in their own ways.

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Simon is hardworking and helps Ralph build the shelters even though he lacks experience in construction. He also tries to help Ralph by convincing him to demonstrate more authority. He never causes trouble and always wants to please others. Simon is known as the exception, he has all good qualities rather than following all the other boys’ paths into darkness and danger.

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So, the boys new societal standards are also causing the evil in them to overtake the good in them. To conclude, in Lord of the Flies William Golding shows the forces of evil overtaking good in his characters when they turn away from the morals they know are correct and start making justifications for themselves. This is seen through the boys thoughts and realizations, when they are hunting, and when the boys start falling away from their regular civilization. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies shows the unsatisfying idea that it is the natural nature of man to let the evil conquer the good in

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In the poem “On The Subway” by Sharon Olds, a woman ponders the life of a black man she sees on the train. First her description is degrading, as she compares his life to her own. She slowly develops insights about the man on the way. Eventually she realizes that she need not be afraid of him, but to feel sorry, for both who she is, and what he has become in her mind.

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Human beings develop a social and moral core after they are born due to the influence and laws of society. But in the absence of the pressure of society, our true human nature is susceptible to revealing itself again, like Oxana Malaya, a child that turned feral after being abandoned by her parents at 2 years old. This is precisely what is explored when a group of boys crash onto a remote island in the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Golding’s intention in writing Lord of the Flies was to show that all humans have a distinct character flaw that, when unchecked by the morals and laws of society, will eventually corrupt the individual. This is shown when the boys try and fail to create their own society, through Jack’s revolution and

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While Ralph is complaining to Jack about how people don’t help much he makes sure to mention that ‘“Simon, he helps”…“He’s done just as much as I have.”’ (54). Ralph’s able to appreciate Simon for the help he provides, even when later stating Simon is funny and weird. Simon is an outsider, and Ralph is angry with everyone, but still gives credit to Simon and recognizes the help Simon gave

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Golding uses Simon to first describe compassion. Compassion is the feeling of empathy and sympathy for the hardship or distress of others. Golding uses Simon to contemplate the understanding of humanity. “(He) found for them the fruit that they could not reach, pulled off the choicest from up in the foliage” (138).

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In Lord of the Flies by WIlliam Golding, a group of boys are flying away from England because of the war that is going on and eventually get stranded on an island. The boys go through a journey of learning how to survive by themselves in a foreign place with no one else but them. Golding writes his characters very well and they are very thought out, whether it be from the way they look to the way their mannerisms slightly change from the start of the book to the end. One of the big differences in Golding's characters is that all the other boys have some form of evil in them, some more than others. One character had no evil in him, Simon is the only boy who does not fall victim to mob mentality but he does fall victim to the other boys on the island.

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Ralph’s incapability of keeping everyone organized and under his control allows Jack to undermine Ralph. Jack does not have devotion, but envy toward Ralph, which leads Jack to, with the aid of Ralph’s weakness, pull away from the group and influence others to do the same. Ralph is not organized enough to control the group and as a result the society falls. Simon also exhibits many positive traits that lead to a successful being in society, but unfortunately is not perfect, which leads to his gruesome end. When the boys are arguing about what the beast from water could possibly be, Simon felt “a

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Human nature will often try and portray itself to be good, but that's not always how it works out. The longer people are drawn away from society, the more they return to savagery. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, society is portrayed as naturally evil, which is a correct representation. Society's evil nature comes from violence and corruption. William Golding’s novel, provides a clear perception of human behavior as evil.

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Human nature tends to be prone to violence and greed. People are discriminatory and put their needs above anything else. Literacy is often used to question whether humanity is inherently good or evil. In Lord of the Flies, Golding portrays this by exhibiting the boys’ treatment of each other. The situations the characters were forced into quickly turned chaotic.

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Everyone’s Evil Human Nature     Without society, humans will always rely on human nature, and with an exception for a select few, it is bad. In the allegorical novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a plane full of British school boys is shot down onto an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and they are stuck with no adults and no communication with the outside world. Characters and events all represent something greater than what is read in this story, but one of the frequently recurring issues is the question of human nature: whether it is good or bad. But based on the events in this story, there is no doubt human nature is bad, even if there are good people.     The most good-natured person in the story, Simon, believes evil, symbolized by the Lord of the Flies, is within everyone.

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