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Evil In Lord Of The Flies

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William Golding’s “The Lord of the Flies” has been critiqued by many people as a work that expresses the theme of evil as an inborn trait in characters. The novel follows the plot of a group of young school boys getting stranded on a remote island leaving them with no adult supervision or reminder of civilization. The boys go through the strain of keeping one another alive, hunting for food, and facing the many malevolent dispositions inhabiting the area they are unable to escape . The underlying evil is prominent as the characters establish themselves from young boys to men challenged by the duty of life, learning the extent of their capabilities. The first character introduced in the novel, Jack, begins his journey as the golden boy. A natural …show more content…

He is selfish, vain and violent, from when he demands to be leader and punches Piggy, to spitting up the group large group, becoming obsessed with slaying the pig and participating in the death of Simon and Piggy. His inner battle and thought process is not as expressed as Ralph’s, so readers must conclude that his true nature is not as deeply hidden and does not take as much time and pressure to expose. Although he understands the need for order in society from his experience as choir boy leader, he chooses to rile his tribe at every chance and help them associate killing with feelings of excitement rather than fear. Young boys such as himself often do not exhibit the traits of men who have reached their evil capabilities, but being freed from the norms of his society gave Jack the chance he needed to exercise his natural instinct. His first act of savagery is hunting the pig, which does not stray far from actions of a normal society. What makes this atypical is his lack of fear of blood or wild animals, “‘There was lashings of blood,’ said Jack, laughing and shuddering, ‘You should have seen it!’” (Golding, 73). This passage expresses the tribe’s excitement of slaughtering a live animal, whereas if an average group of boys were asked to stab an animal, they would be nowhere near as comfortable.The rawness of the wild and the adrenaline of being alone brings out Jack’s primal instincts and only escalates from this point. This event seems almost tame in comparison to other evil acts he continues to commit. In the novel, Piggy’s glasses are a constant symbol of safety and civilization because of the fire they aid in producing, and they have always been in Ralph’s possession. When Jack and his group separate from the others, they come to realize that they will also require a source to build fire. They return to the original camp at night and quietly steal the glasses, “‘You could have had

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