Ethical views expressed in 'Lord of the Flies'

Civilization was created to contain social structure. However, in utmost circumstances, it is possible for instinct to triumph over civility. Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is a plane evacuating a group of British schoolboys that crashes over a tropical deserted island. Once they crash on the island, they pick Ralph, the protagonist of the novel, to be their leader, and Ralph chooses Jack, the antagonist of the novel, to be the leader of the hunters, establishing somewhat of a civilization. Then when Jack comes upon a mother boar and kills it, that’s when their makeshift civilization slowly diminishes and the boys become savages. In addition, loss of social structure within a society can lead to the absolute destruction of the civilization. The author of Lord of the Flies, William Golding, uses man vs man and man vs nature conflicts to develop the theme of loss of social structure leads to savagery. Golding reveals this theme by exploring the conflicts of

In the beginning, there was one tribe led by their elected leader Ralph. When Jack and Ralph have different opinions on what is most important about survival, two different, yet similar tribes emerge from the existing one. Both of the tribes have different characteristics, different jobs they perform on a daily basis, and different leaders who have separate views and opinions. Though they differ in more ways than one, both tribes share at least one thing in common, both are eager to be rescued, and willing to do most anything to survive.

“If you mean going the right way, we’ll hunt(111).” Jack taunts Ralph into helping him hunt. By doing that Jack gets Ralph to help him. Jack frequently manipulated the boys into doing things for his own personal benefit. Jack has total control and implements his beliefs in the other boys. Even if a boy in his tribe didn’t agree with him, his tactics kept them from speaking up. Peer pressure influenced his tribe tremendously. Jack represented a dictator throughout the novel.

Ralph however holds his position of leadership and Jack forms his own tribe with his hunting party. When this happens, Ralph's tribe hits a low point and is struggling to keep their society stable. It is now when Jack seizes the opportunity, feeds all of Ralph’s people, exclaims “‘ I gave you food...my hunters will protect you from the beast. Who will join my tribe?’” (Golding 150). This is the turning point for many of the boys because the loyalty to Ralph is not as strong as the comfort provided by Jack to their fear of the beast. Jack offers them everything that they want at the time and is very easy. After this decision however, they will be unable to overcome this fear and in fact, it will only become

Jack's tribe goes on a hunt for Ralph and Ralph is afraid. He is no

Lastly, being in an uncivilized environment, without rules or consequences, the innate evil is revealed once again when Jack and his tribe attack Ralph. At the commencement of this book, it was one mighty group of young boys fighting for their survival and

Throughout Lord of the Flies, Golding shows his views of the inherent evil of humans. He shows how humans can be in such a savage state, practically mimicking the way of life of their prehistoric ancestors. He exemplifies this with acts of carnage carried on by the young stranded children. It all started with a slight urge to hunt down a pig and then continued on to murdering another human being. Golding shows his views best at the end of the book with the boys being rescued by a Navy crew, which would go on to war it self.

This quote shows how the importance of dictatorial power in a “savage” society. Power is the most important thing when there are no boundaries to society.

right and wrong share a very thin line. The right decision for some might be wrong for others and vice

This makes the problems even worse. Jack wanted to be the leader. This raises the conflicts between Ralph and Jack. Things just go downhill from here.

Although the boys would prefer to have fun and play games, they follow Ralph’s rules at first. This order is maintained until Ralph loses his leadership role to Jack. After providing, or bribing, the boys with juicy pig meat, Jack asks “’Who’ll join my tribe and have fun?’” (211). This lure of enjoyment along with the promise of more food sways the boys to follow Jack. With the demise of Ralph’s leadership and under the leadership of Jack, the boys begin to turn towards savagery.

shows how increasingly comfortable Jack’s tribe is becoming with hunting and savagery. As soon as Jack creates his own tribe, he

Jack says they will hunt it. This is how Jack’s authoritative figure shows he is a dynamic character in the beginning of the novel.

Jack sets his views straight as he believes that hunting is good enough for a tribe to live off. He also tries to encourage others this way by bringing up fun in hunting, thus taking them away from the boring "working life" that Ralph has to offer. In the quote itself, Jack states that the others can go when he wants to go. This may be a foreshadow of the type of leader he is, and what he may do. The quote also informs the reader that Jack has set his priorities straight, and that he

Ralph, being the leader of the group, stated that these civilized and responsible way of their new life didn’t last long after many turned against the group and turned against sanity, starting with one particular “cruel uncivilized being” named Jack Merridew.