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Humanity In Lord Of The Flies

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William Golding, a soldier in the Royal Navy during World War II, used his horrifying experiences from the Second World War to write Lord of the Flies to show what humans are capable of. Lord of the Flies is about British school boys who crash land on a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific. Days after the boys crash land on the island, their civilized lifestyle becomes extinct. Instead of being civil British school boys, they are barbaric savages who do whatever is necessary to get food and anything else they want. In his novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding warns that humanity is fragile, which could lead to our demise. He shows this through Jack’s quest for authority to depict what the inclination of power does to a person; …show more content…

No adults on the island led the group of savages to “kill two of the three rational boys and [hunt] down the third” until there is an adult that intervenes (Hynes 1). The murders of the rational boys were not peaceful, they were barbaric and a very painful death. Simon who is thought to be the beast “struggled forward...and fell over the steep edged of the rock” (Golding 153). As Simon was clenched in a ball trying to protect himself, the boys leapt on to him and beat him until he died. Piggy’s death was atrocious as well, Piggy was forced off the cliff and “fell forty feet and landed on his back. His head [then] opened and stuff came out (Golding 181). The deaths of two of the rational boys was not enough to satisfy the group of savages. They set their goal on killing the third and final rational person on the island, Ralph. There insane idea this time was to set the forest on fire to smoke Ralph out of the forest then kill him when he exits. However, Ralph is luck because a member of the Navy sees the smoke and comes to the rescue. When the officer of the Navy talks to Ralph, he is surprised by the answer “only two [were killed]” (Golding 201). Imagine what savages that have all of the resources they need can do when a group of young boys can kill two of their own with limited

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