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Essay On Good And Evil

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Good and evil: two concepts that have been argued, discussed, and fought over through generations. Two concepts that have been circling each other for eternity as they drive society forward through history. Ancient civilizations represented them as gods above or devils beneath the ground. Good and Evil are shown as order and chaos, opposites. Two authors portray their interpretation of good and evil through their work. William Golding describes his belief that evil is present in everyone’s heart by nature. In contrast, Khalil Gibran writes that people are primarily good, and evil, when displayed, is a function of good merely beaten and abused by fear. A person’s intent and motivation is most important when gauging the impact of someone’s …show more content…

The boys start off as good and progressively get worse and lose a sense of society and good. For example Simon has always cared more about the littluns and taking care of them. In the part of the book when Simon talks to the beast, which represents fear in the boys not savagery, isn’t a depiction of good versus evil but bravery versus fear. In order to stand up against fear there must be strength and good. The death of Simon and Piggy represents all of the good in the boys has been beaten out and gnawed on by that fear. A line from the poem, “For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst” (Gibran 4) is an example of this. It shows that the good in the boys has been beaten and abused by fear not an evil clawing from deep within the boys hearts. This is shown again in chapter 12 when Ralph, who is running from Jack and Roger, runs into the beast. Ralph converses with it and then crushes it. However, all good that was remaining in the book gone when Piggy, by far the strongest mentally, is killed by Roger. This symbolizes that the true leader of the island groups is fear. This is why the boys cry at the end of the book when the naval officer lands on the beach; because they are no longer driven by fear; because they will

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When the boys get stranded on this island they must take care of themselves and try to get rescued. As the boys climb this mountain to get home they face new challenges which resulted them to descend into savagery. With these new challenges of killing the pig for the first time, them breaking the conch, and deaths of Simon and Piggy they to descend into savagery causing them to lose their innocence. After the boys crash landed on the island it was only a matter of time before the boys descend into savagery because lack of leadership, need for survival and loss of innocence. Their first goal on the island was to have fun and get rescued but throughout their stay, they get further away from that.

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In the book, The Lord of the Flies, the boys debate on whether the beast is real or not. The irony throughout the book is based on how the boys are so terrified of there being a fictitious monster on the island that they do not realize that they are the monsters themselves. As the boys begin to act more savagely, their belief of the existence of the beast becomes stronger. Throughout the book, it is clear that the boys are, in fact, the real beast, as evidenced by the spreading hatred, the sexual assaults, and violence. To begin with, the boys’ hatred towards one another grows stronger as the novel progresses, which portrays them as the real beast on the island.

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Simon has a more valiant death than Piggy because he is trying to make everyone aware the beast is not real and is just a hoax. After he finds out the illusion of the beast is not what the boys thought, he tries to bring the parachute to the group, but the irony is the savages mistake him for being the beast and chase after him “The chant rose a tone in agony. They spoke. “Kill the beast! Cut his throat!

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The beast was on its knees in the center, its arms folded over its face. It was crying out against the abominable noise something about a body on the hill. The beast struggled forward, broke the ring and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the sand by the water. At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws” (152) demonstrates that the fear of the beast controlled the boys, and influenced them to kill Simon.

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The “beast” not only has a physical form of a human, it also represents the savagery of human nature that is displayed through the boys. Throughout the novel, the boys slowly lose their sense and morph into horrendous and violent monsters. The most prominent example of this savagery is during Simon’s murder. A very “beast”-like and aggressive vocabulary is used during this scene to describe the boys attack on Simon, including, “leapt… screamed, struck, bit, tore… and the tearing of teeth and claws,” (Doc F). While these words are expected to be used to describe a monster, they describe the boys instead.

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Even though Simon warns them about the evil inside them, their actions still reflect their inherently bad human nature. As the time on the island goes by, the boys kill Simon and Piggy, along with a mother pig, and a well-timed rescue is all that prevents Ralph’s death. Even if people can act good, there is still greed, selfishness, and evil within everyone. It is only through the influence of civil society that the worst of human nature is kept in

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The collective fear of the unknown leads to the untimely and accidental death of Simon. The distress present in the boys causes their impulsive action, of Simon’s horrific murder. Fear of “the beast” an imaginary creature causes the boys to act irrational, and provokes survival instincts as a result of life threatening terror. The fear of the boys in this moment is epitomized when they chant, “Kill the beast!, Cut his throat, Spill his blood!” (168).

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Manipulation to create power One powerful tool to gain power over an induvidual is minipulation. In goldings novel lord of the flies many characters are minipulated and power changes hand through many characters. The key character that creates power through manipulation is jack. The three ways he uses this manipulation is by violance , food and fear. One of the most powerful forms of manipulation that jack uses in the novel is fear.

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