Good And Evil In William Golding's The Lord Of The Flies

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. However, Golding characterizes characters as Simon and Roger as naturally good and …show more content…
Golding expresses his idea on this argument through the killing of Simon by the boys. The boys danced around in a circle chanting about killing the beast during a thunderstorm, where they see a figure crawl out of the forest. The “littluns screamed and blundered about”, and “the shrill of screaming that rose before the beast was like a pain” leading to the boys to continuously stab the alleged beast, Simon killing him. The “screaming that rose before the beast” from the boys reveals their recurring fear of the beast. Blinded by the fear of the beast, they kill Simon, uncovering the fact that the fear within the boys is a key factor in the cause of their evil act of killing Simon. When Golding wrote that the boys were motivated by fear to attack Simon, he expresses his thought that this act of evil was partially caused by the boy’s internalized fear. Since, he argues that fear is a factor that caused the and evil actions of the boys, he argues that good and evil are traits you obtain through actions, not being born with them. Therefore, he shares this idea with the ideas of Locke which is that good and evil are not innate showing us that Golding certifies Locke’s