Evil In Lord Of The Flies, By William Golding

Improved Essays
Lord of the Flies describes the lives of a group of young English schoolboys who have been left stranded on a deserted island. Without the supervision of an adult, they struggle to survive, find shelter, and figure out how to be rescued. During this time, they strive to maintain order, but it becomes clear that many of the boys are capable of evil. Golding’s novel serves as a perfect illustration of Hobbes’s philosophy on the brutish, selfish nature of man, and therefore, the need for a strong government. The author depicts the theme that all mankind has the capacity for evil because of their inborn nature. He details the two main characters, Jack and Ralph, as examples of his claim. Jack was selfish and was driven “to violence. The bolting

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

    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

    Lord of the Flies by William Golding is classic loss of innocence novel that has been taught in schools for decades, and will continue to be taught for years to come. A group of young boys crash land on an island with no supervision and are stranded there will little hope of being found or rescued. In the book, William Golding uses a dangerous island setting, rich symbolism, and a overall extended metaphor to relate the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The island is the first part of the book and a very important one.…

    • 1112 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Psychological Masks “He capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness.” The mask represents (Finish hook) Stranded on an island after a plane crash, a group of young schoolboys in William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies struggle to find the balance between fun and survival. With no adults to be found the children elect Ralph, an inexperienced leader who attempts to form a democracy. The newfound order soon crumbles under a dictatorship founded by Jack, a choirboy that was displeased with the verdict.…

    • 942 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The “Lord of The Flies,” by William Golding has been a novel with a complex plot, diverse characters, and amazing messages. “Lord of The Flies” is a novel about a group of boys who are stranded on an island. During the novel, the boys end up voting to place one boy, (Ralph), as chief. However, later in the plot, another child named Jack starts to form his own tribe. Throughout the novel, the hardest challenge is the boys have to try to survive on the island.…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Lord of the Flies also touches on how that you can be influenced by your certain environments which can lead to acts that show a loss of empathy or no empathy at all. Jack is a source of evil in the book. He is conveyed through high levels of savagery and primitivism. The books introduce us to this theme with Jack. Jack was always on the controlling side, but it got worse as the story progressed.…

    • 1278 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Sachi Yang Ms. Hale English 10 ADV (1110.5) June 15th 2016 Outline I. Introduction a. Thesis Statement: After analyzing novel Lord of the Flies and the lyrics of “Sympathy for the devil”, it can be easy to find out that they have the subject about evil. Therefore, how do both of them prove that evil is a nature of human? II.…

    • 2355 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    William Golding's Lord of The Flies tells the tale of a group of young boys stranded on an island and their life while on the island. The boy's plane crashes onto an island leaving only them alive on the island with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The boy's struggles show Golding's thoughts on humans and how we interact with each other. Golding explores characters such as Piggy, Ralph, and Jack who show certain characteristics that align with Golding's beliefs. His beliefs shape the outcome of the boys and how they act.…

    • 781 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In William Golding’s novel, “The Lord of the Flies” starts out as a group of young boys get stranded on an island with no adults. They are forced to build their own set of rules and society. Golding portrays many unique conditions and situations that symbolize ideas or concepts. At first, this seems like a paradise, a dream come true but it soon leads to conflict. Such symbols as Simon and holiness, fire and power, to beasts and darkness, to pigs and craziness are all what help Golding put the novel together.…

    • 822 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Humans are flawed creatures. Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel in which a group of young British schoolboys are stranded on an island slowly wander into savagery because of flaws. Golding’s novel is an attempt to trace the faults of society back to human nature. Through the behaviour of the schoolboys, Golding reveals that due to fear, power, and loss of identity, society is destined to fail.…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Evil In Lord Of The Flies

    • 1236 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Inside each of us there is good and evil, and normally the evil lays dormant. However, in survival situations, this evil can take over. In William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, the evil inside each boy is awakened. The novel begins with boys from England, ages six through twelve, dropped on a remote island without civilization, causing the group of boys to fend for themselves for months without adult supervision. As time goes on, the boys become more animalistic, causing their dormant evil to come alive.…

    • 1236 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Jack internally chooses to become a hunter and a killer throughout the course of the novel, but as the boys are being rescued, the reader is left to wonder if Jack will choose maintain this murderous composure or choose to forget all that happened and revert back to his civilized self. The internal conflict found buried throughout Lord of the Flies allows the plot and theme to thrive and develop, giving the reader a larger, broader view of the novel. As well as the subtle undertones of internal conflict, William Golding provides the reader with many physical and verbal fights between boys. Ralph and Jack are primary examples of how personalities clashed on the island. They are two very headstrong, opinionated boys with each their own individual style of leading the group, so naturally, conflict would arise with one another.…

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    William Golding’s Lord of the Flies writes about the ideas of people’s personalities and the evil within the human heart. Set within an island, a group of young boys set out to survive and be rescued; however, it is later seen how the boys end up being wild and savage when they’re left without adult supervision. Golding depicts Simon as a scapegoat whose exceptional persona on an island of chaos and anarchy makes him a target for the stranded boys’ hatred/evil. Starting early on in the novel, Simon shows a caring, generous personality, which becomes a stigma that he is “unique” in comparison to the other boys. Even though the norm for the biguns on the beach was to ignore or not help the littluns; Simon was different in that, “Simon found…

    • 744 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In a time when every aspect of life was questioned such as government, religion, and personal liberty, philosophers questioned one aspect that had no definite answer, and this was human nature. Thomas Hobbes theorizes that humans are born evil, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that humans are naturally good. However, John Locke declared that humans are not innately good or evil. William Golding came back to the of innate human behavior during the 20th century when wrote the novel Lord of the Flies, where he displayed his unique and nuanced view of innateness of good and evil. His complex view is implied through his complex characterization of Ralph and Piggy.…

    • 1026 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Topic Question – How do the boys change on the island? William Golding in his novel, “The Lord of The Flies” the story tells about a group of military boys who marooned on a deserted tropical island surrounded by an ocean. Their initial aim is to establish civilization. They realize that they must establish basic rules of coexistence and discipline, using as a model democracy, inheritance of society from which they came. The three main characters all represent different personalities and the effects they have on each other under various challenging circumstances.…

    • 1413 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays