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. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a group of British boarding-school boys is suddenly left stranded on an island by a plane crash. During their time spent on the island, …show more content…
Ralph summons the boys to a meeting and they decide that they must set up some form of leadership through voting: “This toy of voting was almost as pleasing as the conch” (22). They follow the democratic model of the United States and Britain by that time, yet they see it as a “toy”. They treat what is considered to be civility as a game or something used for entertainment. Through their attempts, some pieces and habits of society that they retain are shown, but their democracy is false. Later on in the book, the reader discovers the motivation for their attempts to establish some form of society when Piggy says, “We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re English, and the English are best at everything. So we’ve got to do the right things” (42). The desire for order and civility is not truly a part of them; they believe that they ought to have rules and obey them only because of the English standard. They look at themselves as the most proper type of people and as if they are tempered to behave civilly because they’re English. The boys do not do what is right simply because it is the proper thing to do, they believe that they do what is right because the English are the ones that do the “right things.” This idea is debunked when Ralph realizes that their established democracy is ineffective and that the plans for …show more content…
He criticizes all the claims of civility, especially those belonging to the British. As the World Wars were waged, Golding saw that humanity is capable of dark things and that no country or society is devoid of that darkness. Savagery, one of the negatives of human nature, is bridled by rules. Therefore, without regulation savagery overcomes civility. Danny Boyle said that survival instinct is “such a powerful force” that it is able to overcome civility; savagery, as another part of human nature, is able to act in the same
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. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a group of British boarding-school boys is suddenly left stranded on an island by a plane crash. During their time spent on the island, …show more content…
Ralph summons the boys to a meeting and they decide that they must set up some form of leadership through voting: “This toy of voting was almost as pleasing as the conch” (22). They follow the democratic model of the United States and Britain by that time, yet they see it as a “toy”. They treat what is considered to be civility as a game or something used for entertainment. Through their attempts, some pieces and habits of society that they retain are shown, but their democracy is false. Later on in the book, the reader discovers the motivation for their attempts to establish some form of society when Piggy says, “We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re English, and the English are best at everything. So we’ve got to do the right things” (42). The desire for order and civility is not truly a part of them; they believe that they ought to have rules and obey them only because of the English standard. They look at themselves as the most proper type of people and as if they are tempered to behave civilly because they’re English. The boys do not do what is right simply because it is the proper thing to do, they believe that they do what is right because the English are the ones that do the “right things.” This idea is debunked when Ralph realizes that their established democracy is ineffective and that the plans for …show more content…
He criticizes all the claims of civility, especially those belonging to the British. As the World Wars were waged, Golding saw that humanity is capable of dark things and that no country or society is devoid of that darkness. Savagery, one of the negatives of human nature, is bridled by rules. Therefore, without regulation savagery overcomes civility. Danny Boyle said that survival instinct is “such a powerful force” that it is able to overcome civility; savagery, as another part of human nature, is able to act in the same