Environmental Factors In Lord Of The Flies And The Teenage Brain

Improved Essays
In Lord of the Flies, the boys are influenced by environmental factors and biological factors. Biological factors are our impulses, our need to eat, our decision making, and environmentally is the situation you’re in; how you react to it. In two articles, Martyn Shuttleworth’s “Stanford Prison Experiment,” and Amanda Leigh Mascarelli’s “Teenage Brain,” they both discuss the effects of biological and environmental factors on the brain. Therefore, the large amount of evidence supporting how environmental factors and biological factors both play a big role supports that the boys are affected by both biological and environmental factors. One compelling reason, in Lord of the Flies Jack is impacted by environmental factors in the story since his attitude changes drastically throughout. In the story, Jack …show more content…
For example, he acts rudely to piggy by saying "You're always scared. Yah ---- Fatty!. In “The Teenage Brain” by Amanda Leigh Mascarelli, she speaks and explains about how the adolescent brain is constantly challenged in the battle with rational thought and impulses. To elaborate, she says “Teenagers must act on an endless parade of choices. Some choices, including smoking, come with serious consequences. As a result, adolescents often find themselves trapped between their impulsive tendencies (Just try it!) and their newfound ability to make well-informed and logical choices (Wait, maybe that’s not such a good idea!).” When she says this, she shows the difficulties adolescents are presented with when making

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Society has cultivated the human mind to filter knowledge and moral values that are taught from birth. William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies traces society's flaws back to the true nature of humans when they are free from the constraints of society. The novel explores a group of English boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island during a period of war after a plane crash. They attempt to govern themselves in order to sort things out while waiting for rescue. However, as time passes by, things begin to get out of control and situations manifest, tempting the boys’ desire for order.…

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Society shapes people to be civilized and follow the guidelines put in place by the society's leaders. In William Golding's novel, the reader experiences first hand what it's like to be separated from society and the progression of reverting back to human instincts. This novel can be used to prove the theory that society conditions people to conform to a chosen culture, and how people revert to their instincts without this conditioning. Through the experiences that take place throughout the book, the reader can learn in order to create the perfect, civilized human, they must have adult influence, order and consistent human interaction. It all begins when Jack Merridew decides: "Then we'll have to look over ourselves".…

    • 749 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Human Nature in Lord of the Flies Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is a captivating narrative in which the reader lives through the trials and tribulations of a society set up and run by a group of marooned British teens. Golding believes that the basic nature of the individual is evil. The group ultimately proves this thesis by their actions. The evils of the individual are shown through the actions of the group’s hunter Jack, the murders of two members of the society, Simon and Piggy, the attempted murder of the group’s leader Ralph, and the ultimate destruction of the island. Jack has a natural longing to be number one, he was not satisfied with being the leader of the hunters, and this ultimately caused many of…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Lord Of The Flies Vs Beah

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In both Lord of the Flies and A Long Way Gone, William Golding and Ishmael Beah depict the plight of young boys who are forced to endure various hardships. Through their characters’ adversity, both Golding and Beah suggest that fear and the struggle to survive may result in the degeneration of civilization and logical thought, the loss of one’s humanity, and the corruption of leaders. Both Golding and Beah illustrate how society can collapse due to terror and chaos. For example, in Lord of the Flies, the boys heatedly debate the existence of a monster, and “to Ralph...this seemed the breaking of sanity” (Golding 88). Golding clarifies how the boys’ fear of the beast makes them wary and unreasonable, hinting at the start of their civilization’s…

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the novel, “Lord of the Flies”, by William Golding, he shows as time increases the boys physical appearance changes in both subtle and dramatic ways and given these alterations of their appearance it changes the boy’s sense of community and their ideas of appropriate behavior. In chapter one of “Lord of The Flies”, it showed how the choir boys are walking in unison and in eccentric clothing and in uniform from neck to toe. William Golding wanted the boys to portray this kind of look to describe the boys as being overdressed because as the time increases on the island their appearance became quite a slipshod. They are clearly from a fancy private school and used to behaving properly Golding added imagery to this book because he wanted his readers to imagine how life was like for the boys living in a nice environment wearing nice clothes well behaved and proper hygiene, until they were stranded on the island.…

    • 760 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “Lord of the Flies” young, British school boys are deserted on an island after their plane has crashed while fleeing from their school during the war. With no adults around to keep the peace the children begin to do whatever they want and whatever it takes to survive. As the children gradually grow from well-behaved, rule following children praying to be rescued into cruel, bloodthirsty hunters who have no want or need to return to civilization things begin to get wild. They naturally lose the sense of innocence that they maintained at the beginning of the novel due to the lack of adults, civilization, and order.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Immanuel Kant, German philosopher and central figure of modern philosophy, once said, “Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another.” Immaturity is driven by ignorance and can lead to action without analysis of consequences. Immaturity consumes thoughts and actions and leads to a distorted perception of right from wrong and societal expectation. Although the boys’ survival instincts are put on trial in the novel “Lord of the Flies”, the primary contributing factor in the boys’ struggles on the Island is their immaturity. Throughout the mounting of the sow’s head, Simon’s ascent up the mountain and Piggy’s death, this grave immaturity is demonstrated.…

    • 952 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Connecting “The Stanford Prison Experiment” to Lord of the Flies “but look out the evil is in us all” (Goulding 208) stated William Golding in his novel Lord of the Flies. This quote implies that even the best us have the ability to do great evil. Dropping questions such as, how much of your “good conduct” is dependant on someone watching you? Are we more a product of our environment (Nurture) or DNA (Nature). Lord of the Flies and The Stanford Prison Experiment illustrate that when left unmonitored in primal situations of survival, human civility is often replaced by savagery.…

    • 811 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout life, people grow and change. Along our journey, certain events have great effects on who we become and how we react in situations. In his novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding explores on the thought of events and situations shaping people's characters. In the sequel I have decided to write, I have chosen three characters’ lives to analyze after being rescued. During the sequel, which occurs ten years after being rescued, the future lives of Ralph, Roger, and Simon will be examined.…

    • 717 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nature Vs. Nurture If a child hits another child, because he got his toy stolen, is it because of the way that the child was raised? Or is it simply because they are children? Well, that is where the debate ‘Nature Vs.…

    • 1233 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    So they might think what they're doing is a such a fantastic idea, but in reality it might be the worst decision of their lives. To say nothing of, letting them start smoking it is like saying, “Sign here to take off 8 or more years of your life, it’s your choice.” So if they are able to make the choice at 18 instead of 21 when you are more mature it would cause over 250,000 premature deaths every…

    • 849 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Tea Parties To Savagery

    • 1671 Words
    • 7 Pages

    rey Johnson Mr. Groover English 9 16 May 2015 From Tea Parties to Savagery Danny Boyle said, “Survival instinct, that will to live, that need to get back to life again, is more powerful than any consideration of taste, decency, politeness, manners, civility. Anything. It’s such a powerful force.” Survival is one thing that becomes a higher priority than civility or other characteristics when people are confronted with danger; therefore, human instinct proves that humanity’s claim to civility is conditional in the same way that the savage disposition of humans does.…

    • 1671 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Causal Factors People often make the comment, ‘that would never happen normally’ to explain their actions in a certain situation. While they think that this is a viable answer to unusual actions, scientists have reason to believe that there are more than just two factors that affect people behaviors. First they think about situational factors including environment and surroundings, otherwise known as right place, right time. Secondly, they look at biological factors that encompass emotional development and factors of the brain.…

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When something pivotal happens to someone, their attitude and way of thinking change devastatingly. Although these boys may only be 6-12, they go through the same things that anyone would undergo. This loss of innocence causes people to act in ways contrary to their typical self. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses the characterization of the boys to illustrate how people lose their innocence when going through a traumatic event.…

    • 809 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In modern society, adolescents cannot wait to mature and enjoy the perks of adulthood, but they are often unaware of what it costs to lose their innocence. Just like children in the real world, the boys from Lord of the Flies mature and lose their naivety, optimism, and other markers of their childlike mindset. Golding uses the boys as an example to convey his opinion of what really causes this loss of innocence. In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, he shows that understanding the reality of death causes the change from innocence to maturity. William Golding’s character development of Ralph, and his use of the motif, death, are prime examples of the ways he develops his point.…

    • 1761 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays