Lord Of The Flies Internal And External Factors Of Savagery

Internal and External Factors of Savagery Savagery is defined as a uncivilized or barbaric state or condition. People result to savage behavior because of internal factors such as fear or the adrenaline the feel when in a group, or external factors such as lack of resources, or a family feud. An internal factor that may result cause someone to result to uncivilized behavior is fear. An example in the Lord of the Flies, was when Ralph says, “I’m frightened. Of us. I want to go home. Oh God, I want to go home”(Golding 157). In this part of the story, they have just killed Simon, and the boys realize that they are really scared, and want to go home because of the savage acts. Fear sets in and makes people out of control, like the boys in the story. In a group, people may do things without thinking it through thoroughly because they feel a build up of adrenaline and they follow the group. This is considered as another internal factor. In the Mob Mentality article the author says, “150 teenagers spilled out of the gallery shopping mall east of city hall during rush hour and rampaged through Macy’s …show more content…
Lack of resources is one of these factors. Ralph screams at Jack, "I was talking about smoke! Don't you want to be rescued? All you talk about is pig, pig, pig!”(Golding 54). The boys begin fighting over food because they are stranded on the island with very little resources. This shows us that people may become savages when they do not have enough food. Another example of an external factor is the family feud in the Interlopers. Saki describes that the family feud had gone back for many generations, and that it had initiated from the “illegal possession of a neighboring family of petty landowners”(Saki 190). Their feud had “grown into a personal one”(Saki 190). The boys turned into savages by trying to kill each other in the woods , all because of a silly family fight over a piece of