Lord Of The Flies Nature And Nurture Essay

Is there any situation you can think of that would make you act differently than normal? Did you answer yes?- So did everybody else. The power of the situation is heavily present in Lord of the Flies in the form of the age-old question ‘Nature or Nurture’. In this argument ‘nature’ means the biological traits that drive human behavior, and ‘nurture’ means the ways society and outside factors influence human behavior. In Lord of the Flies, the boys at first behave the way society nurtured them to behave, but later they descend into what many, including the author, think of as base human nature (an opinion influenced by Thomas Hobbes). Whether human behavior relies on its nature or the way it is nurtured is entirely dependent on the situation

The Zimbardo Prison Experiment showed the power of situations and roles; “Within hours of beginning the experiment, some guards began to harass prisoners. At 2:30 A.M. prisoners were awakened from sleep by blasting whistles for the first of many “counts.” The counts served as a way to familiarize the prisoners with their numbers. More importantly, they provided a regular occasion for the guards to exercise control over the prisoners” (Mcleod). Nobody was telling the guards to do what they were doing, or enforcing this behavior in any way. The actions of these entirely normal Stanford students were due to the situation they were in; there were no rules or structure or any kind of society, they were just given a role and left to

Roger’s actions in Lord of the Flies is a good example; “Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was a space around Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life” (Golding 62). The behavioral shift mentioned before creates an entirely new component: hesitation. Conflict during a shift from ‘nature’ to ‘nurture’ can stall actions and create a temporary middle ground between the two environments and their expectations. Another take on the matter; “Freud believed that feelings of anxiety result from the ego's inability to mediate the conflict between the id and superego. When this happens, Freud believed that the ego seeks to restore balance through various protective measures known as defense mechanisms” (Stevens 88). Defense mechanisms are another human behavior that can be explained by this conflict. Previously unexplainable behaviors now come into light in the instance of these types of circumstances.The way anxiety, a conflict between biology and society, affects how we act further proves that we are slaves to situation. Human behavior is affected and explained by moments between ‘nature’ and