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Violence In Lord Of The Flies

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The Violence Within Us Throughout recorded history, human nature suggests that people should thrive to study and interrogate one another for understanding. A wild idea that “The human brain could never comprehend its own workings, let alone understand its own understanding” corrupted the theory (The Onion). In the Lord of the Flies, William Golding is able to portray this ideology through a group of young boys who are castaways on an island. Through many struggles and tribulations, they learn the importance of maintaining a proper society and the effects of its failure. Rather than trying to recover what they had lost, the boys fought among each other, trailing down a dark path of progressive violence caused by dehydration, human nature, and …show more content…

Even though water was accessible, Ralph, the chief, seemed to prioritize his workload over consuming the minimal amount necessary to survive. In the novel, violence progressed as the plot evolved because of the lack of water, leading to disillusions and hallucinations. This proved to be dangerous and resulted in imaginary visions and voices in the boy’s heads. This thoroughly supports Simon’s conversation with the Lord of the Flies. When he retreats to the solitude of his secret spot, the readers are informed and can assume that he was dehydrated--but there was a chance that it was not only him. As Simon trails back to the others, “he walked drearily between the trunks, his face empty of expression, and the blood was dry around his mouth and chin,” leaving us to assume that he is not in his right mind (Golding 146). Jack and the others including Piggy and Ralph had begun their “dance” where “the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws” (Golding 153). Distorted visions and hallucinations are common side effects of dehydration; Jack compared and continued to validate that Simon was the beast and they did not have to worry anymore. It is human nature to justify why one is in the right and that is exactly what Jack does to make himself feel like a hero about the crime he had

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924 Words | 4 Pages

Simon, previously part of Ralph’s group, has been killed in a ritual dance, an accident, but a preventable one, after the two groups meet at Jack’s camp for a feast, Ralph didn’t stop himself, or anyone else. Ralph has lost his grip on any leadership, he’s starting to lose his grip on himself and give into the collective “mob mentality”. In Chapter Ten, “I wasn’t scared, I was-I don't know what I was” says Ralph to Piggy, Piggy tries to comfort Ralph by telling him it was an accident, but Ralph is fully aware of his participation in Simon’s death and it’s eating away at him. After Jack and his hunters attack Ralph’s camp, stealing Piggy’s glasses for fire, Ralph decides to bring himself, Piggy, Sam, and Eric, to Jack’s camp, to confront them. Ralph expresses that they could’ve just asked for fire, that there is no reason for them to be acting like savages, stealing and killing, without any order or rules.

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1243 Words | 5 Pages

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding tells the story of a group of once-innocent schoolboys who flee their homes during a world war. However, the plane they traveled in crashed on a deserted island far from any civilization on the way to safety. Trapped with no adults or authority figures, the boys have to survive on their own with little or no guidance. As the boys stay on the island and try to find outside help, their humanity shifts into savagery. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, he shares his belief that without the structure of society, humans are savage by a conch shell symbolizing structure and humanity on the island, as well as using juxtaposition to contrast those who represent humanity and savagery.

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827 Words | 4 Pages

The boys give these darker feelings a different form as a way to better comprehend their own fear and primal instincts. As they further drift away from civilization and order, their inner beast starts to control them until they let the evil completely take

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772 Words | 4 Pages

At the end of the conversation, when Simon, “fell down and lost consciousness,” (Golding. Pg. 158), helps the readers know that the conversation is not real. Simon fainting after the conversation also showed that instead of talking to the Lord of the Flies, or the beast, he was thinking to himself about the evil on the island and realized it was within the boys. Similarly, this also shows the fact that he subconsciously knew of the evil within the boys.

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1247 Words | 5 Pages

By now, the boys have completely lost their morals, and they believe Jack when he says Simon was “the beast”. Character development clearly shows the theme of loss of innocence. Jack was like any other boy. After being left without adults, or any civilization, he becomes morally corrupt and leads other boys down the same

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248 Words | 1 Pages

One of the internal conflicts Ralph faced was when unknowingly all the boys killed Simon thinking he was the beast in the dark. “At last Ralph stopped. He was shivering. “Piggy.” “Uh?”

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517 Words | 3 Pages

This is indicating that Simon is weak from the very beginning and is a sign that he will be one of the first to fall, which he is with his death in chapter 9. Also, in chapter 3, Ralph, Simon, and Jack are talking about the condition of the island. Simon recommends making shelters to calm the little ones at night. Ralph and Piggy have a conversation, and when they return Simon is gone, even though in the past he had always been around. Simon was the voice of reason on the island, and this foreshadows his death because one minute he is there, and then he is absent, along with his logic and helpfulness, just like in his death; he is alive and well, and then he has a seizure and is killed, and all of the reason he possesses is

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478 Words | 2 Pages

Ralph’s incapability of keeping everyone organized and under his control allows Jack to undermine Ralph. Jack does not have devotion, but envy toward Ralph, which leads Jack to, with the aid of Ralph’s weakness, pull away from the group and influence others to do the same. Ralph is not organized enough to control the group and as a result the society falls. Simon also exhibits many positive traits that lead to a successful being in society, but unfortunately is not perfect, which leads to his gruesome end. When the boys are arguing about what the beast from water could possibly be, Simon felt “a

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460 Words | 2 Pages

The first reason I think the boys savage and immoral behavior is based on biology. I said that because there was no adults to guide them. And, that led them to go crazy simply because there was rule or authority there. I can support my reason from the article “ Why boys become vicious”. It shows kids

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954 Words | 4 Pages

Lord of the Flies Would you get involved to make something right when it has already gone too far to be fixed? In Lord of the Flies by Wiliam Golding, a group of boys end up stranded on a deserted island without being able to contact anyone for help. While the boys are there, they decide that they need to set rules in order to survive, but once a chief is elected, some of them get hungry for power and turn to violence in order to obtain it. Some boys can not do anything to help, but instead they picked a side and followed in the leader's footsteps. Similarly, the poem “Picture of Childhood” by Yevgeny Yevtushenko takes place with children rushing in order to see a fight that was taking place, and once they arrive at the scene, they are left

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1358 Words | 6 Pages

The boys craved a sense of normalcy of having someone to look up to in the aftermath of the plane crash and lack of adults. “As young people grasp the moral “logic” of human social cooperation, they are upset when this logic is violated (Berk 506).” So the boys are emotionally unstable from the upheaval from civilization to the freedom of the

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897 Words | 4 Pages

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be stranded on an island with a school of kids? The book Lord of the Flies tackles exactly what you just thought about; the book is about a cluster of elementary school kids that were sent away from the U.K during a war. While they’re being evacuated, their plane gets shot down and all of the kids survive but none of the crew members do. The plane lands on a stranded island and this is where the children will live for the unseeable future. The book is written by William Golding who was inspired to write it after his past time-fighting in the war.

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973 Words | 4 Pages

In one’s life, most people think they are civilized but in reality, there is a little be of savagery in all of us, like the yin and yang with every white there is a little black and vise verse. In Lord of the Flies, Jack is the main hunter of the group of choir boys and Ralph is the leader of the group of boys. Hunting slowly starts turning Jack into an insane savage as he slowly forgets about everything he has ever learned about how to be civilized and Ralph can’t keep the group of boys under control as they both descend into savagery. Jack becomes the most savage person on the Island while Ralph is trying to keep everyone civilized with his own civilization with rules and certain roles that people must play, like attending the fire or hunting

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1303 Words | 6 Pages

The civilization vs savagery in a man is not determined by past experiences, but the person that has always been deep within them. In William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies, the true nature of humans is noticed through a group of British boys. The boys are on a plane together that crashes on a deserted island, where the boys attempt to figure out a way of surviving and getting rescued. Although, at first the boys are excited that they have a chance with no adults, so they are able to act the way they desire. Eventually, the boys get used to acting out in ways that they wouldn’t have in the past, which causes them to become very violent.

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820 Words | 4 Pages

According to the University of Minnesota, his brain must have perceived all of the fear in the group of boys as negative and remembered it when he was tired, causing him to imagine the Lord of the Flies character. This quote is an example of Simon’s brain reacting to the signals from the amygdala, instead of rational processing. “They became motionless, gripped in each other’s arms, four unwinking eyes aimed and two mouths open” (Golding 98). Their unwavering fear of the beast magnified their experience from merely seeing the movement of the dead paratrooper to seeing a threat and consequently caused them to experience the sight before them more terrifying. Moreover, their fear has caused them to become incapacitated, according to the University of Minnesota, as they did not run away immediately after seeing the paratrooper that they perceived as the beast.

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