Lord Of The Flies Rhetorical Analysis Essay

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. For example, Jack has enacted his evil by feeding his bloodlust and brutally murdering sows in the jungle. Furthermore, the evil within the entire group is prevalent in

He notices that Jack is destroying nature and he chooses to do nothing. Another character that shows evil is Piggy. Piggy is extremely self-centered in his thinking. He believes that only his opinions are correct and other’s opinions are wrong. This is evident when Simon states his opinions on the Beast, and Piggy believes his ideas are crazy. Ultimately, the boys give into their own evil and the largest example of this, is in the slaughtering of the pigs: hunting. Most the group find amusement and excitement in these hunts. Eventually the boys hurt each other, due to their hunting mindsets, and this is proven when the Lord of the Flies says to Simon “We are going to have fun on this island. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island!” (pg. 158 Golding). In this quote the Lord of the Flies uses verbal irony to tell Simon that the boys are going to have fun on the island, by hunting, however the verbal irony connotes that the boys are not going to have fun and they actually result in hurting each other. Thus, the author conveys that one’s innate malevolence can be prompted in certain scenarios and our sense of civility can be