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Evil in the lord of the flies
Good and evil in lord of the flies
Evil in the lord of the flies
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Many of us believe there is good and there is evil, they aren’t one of the same. Except for Eric Burdon, who says “Inside each of us, there is a seed of both good and evil. It’s a constant struggle as to which one will win. And one cannot exist without the other”. Truman Capote has an understanding this and is seen in Perry, one of his characters in “In Cold Blood” written in 1965.
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. In Lord of the
Aristotle, according to me, has a rather satisfactory counter-argument to Glaucon’s opinions in the Ring of Gyges Story. It is true that what is good for one might not be necessarily good for another and if doing something evil makes one feel good then that particular individual is essentially very immoral. An individual who is not as deep into immorality as this particular person would feel a level of guilt if they did something evil. Glaucon’s proposal that good people lack the good things evil behavior brings is, therefore, nullified.
It has been said several times throughout history that human nature is constitutionally a negative force. This is further shown in William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies when numerous young boys aged twelve and under are stranded on an island after a plane crash during World War 2. These children abandon all civilization and grow more savage as the literature progresses. The main boys: Ralph, Simon, Piggy, and Jack change exponentially throughout the novel, gradually losing themselves and any culture they had. Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, depicts human nature’s inherent evil and man’s inability to escape it.
The reality is that good and evil cannot be divided due to a difference of beliefs. This means that a person may see something as evil that another person see as good.
“A boy was born in this world with a heart of gold, but the way of the world made his heart turn cold” this is a quote take from the song by the band “Earth Wind and Fire” which is an excellent metaphor for talking about whether humans are born good or evil, to which one might say they are born good or they are born evil others will say they are neither. This brings up an interesting point, some people argue people are usually born neither as when you are born you have no perceived context of good or evil, and the environment on which you are raised will affect your morals and how you live your life, but some people may bring up the argument that out of all the people born in the world at least a small percentage must be born with evil intentions, this brings up an sizable dilemma that the book “Lord of The Fly’s” can answer. The book seems to allure to the answer to that question being evil as evidenced by the way the tribe changes from the beginning to the end, the changes of the two chiefs throughout the novel, and also even the world we live in today. The two tribes in the book lord of the flies is the main conflict of this book.
Although everyone has the capacity to act good, there is also evil within everyone and it is only
William Golding uses the theme that humans are naturally bad at heart, in the book Lord of the Flies to highlight that without the order and respect we choose to live our daily lives with our human nature will ultimately take us into chaos and savagery. Morals are what we choose to live by, this is what keeps us accountable. Morals do not appear overnight. Overtime they are ingrained throughout our childhood. Giving us a sense of right and wrong.
He describes the objection as, “all men desire the apparent good, but have no control over the appearance, but the end appears to each man in a form answering to his character” (1114b). This view argues that all people pursue that which seems good, but some people cannot see the true good, which is out of their control. The immediate implication of this objection, if it is indeed true, suggests that “no one is responsible for his own evildoing” (1114b).
A Questionable Flaw In a fight between good versus evil, good is the recurring victor. However, when the good and evil are fighting within oneself, the outcome is not as desired as we wish it would be. Abraham Lincoln once said, “I would rather be a little nobody than an evil somebody.” Although good should definitely triumph evil, most people struggle between the two and it is a recurrent flaw.
Edmund Burke once stated, "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." As long as society exists the concept of good and evil will always be a central conflict. However, it is dangerous to simply believe that some people are innately good or bad. When talking about good and evil, good is the idea that people have the ability to empathize with other people, to feel compassion for them, and to put other people 's needs before their owns. In contrast, evil takes over when a good person is no longer able to empathize or care about another human being.
Nobody is born bad, not even the evilest of souls. In the Lord of the Flies, the main point of emphasis is that inherent good is in everyone, but so is original sin. The beast is inside of us all, and that is why with every child comes a beast. People turn savage because of their life experiences. Many times throughout our life we must make a decision that can change us forever.
There are many references in the novel that reflect upon the theme of good vs. evil. A quote that expresses “good” is, “Thus are we ministers of God's own wish. That the world, and men for whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very existence would defame Him. He have allowed us to redeem one soul already, and we go out as the old knights of the Cross to redeem more. Like them we shall travel towards the sunrise.
Through out history evil has been best depicted as the absence of goodness and goodness as the absence of evil. With goodness being comprehended as the direct opposite of evil. It is under speculation that maybe there can 't exist only one general meaning of good vs. evil. I trust this, in light of the fact that any one individual 's perception of good or evil is without a doubt directed by one 's social comprehension of certain qualities and ethics within their culture, i.e. the power of social conformity (Muncaster-Social Psychology Lecture, 2016). Yes, there can be cases of evil that is seen as malevolent all over the world but due to the ethnocentric component of the perception of cultural morals and values, one is unable to categorize another individual as evil or good based upon their own cultural understanding of this notion.
Evil is a simple word that we learn at a young age and that we understand is bad. However, our youth and innocence prevents us from knowing the weight the word holds. As our understanding of evil develops, we begin to see evil all around us. Although we hold common societal definitions of evil, each person is bound to view evil slightly different from others. Someone might consider alcoholism evil, while others consider it normal: someone might believe racism is evil, while others believe it is natural.