Once, a wise man said “Man is the cruelest animal.” Respected Friedrich Nietzsche said this due his realization of the innate evil in humans. We as homo sapiens are very greedy for power, we cannot resist the fact that another being can control us. Golding was always pessimistic about the human nature, due to encountering the depravity of individuals in the war. Golding’s greatest saying is “Man produces evil as bees produce honey.” William Golding’s allegorical novel “Lord of the Flies” involves many elemental fictionality’s to communicate the main idea and theme of the novel. One of the phenomenal themes conceived by the novel is, the malevolence in human nature, and it is not one that develops over time as brilliancy but it’s one that is …show more content…
Away from society, Jack has the sudden urge to hunt. His sudden urge to hunt, foreshadows the developing nature of Jack. When Jack first got the chance to kill a pig, he backed down. "I was going to," he said, "I was choosing a place...next time!!!”(Golding, 31). Even though Ralph had made his intentions for achieving the groups basic needs first clear, Jack denies Ralph and decides to fulfill his goal; to catch a pig. Not long after, Jack actually catches a Pig, he gets obsessed. Jack spends most of his futile time trying to achieve a authority over all, but to satisfy his primal impulses he hunts pigs. "All the same you need an army-for hunting. Hunting pigs", said Jack on the novel (Golding, 43). Jack desires for power shows that savagery has started taking over his mind. When Jack’s savage personality overcomes him, he tries throwing Ralph from his crowned name ‘chief’. As we now he had managed to devise his own tribe, a tribe where hunting pigs was a necessity. The want to exterminate pigs represents how Jack has always harboured an evil heart. Jack’s true malevolence prevailed after killing Simon. Eventually, Jack and his tribe begin to kill with no remorse. After killing Piggy, Jack exclaimed, "See! that's what you'll get! I meant that! The conch is gone, I'm chief!”(Golding,181). Jack’s thirst for blood, even if it was for a pig, kinda influenced Ralph in a
In chapter 4, Jack creates a strategic method to successfully hunt down the pig. This desire to kill the pig has distracted and prevented Jack from following Ralph’s orders. “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.”
However, in contrast to this when Jack comes across a pig, evidentially to kill as he assigned himself the role of hunter, Jack is unable to murder the animal. Golding describes
He is the lead of the hunters. His job is to provide members meats. Contrast with Ralph, Jack is violent. He focuses on killing instead of getting rescued. When Jack hunts the pig, he will proudly say: “Kill the pig, cut her throat, spill the blood” (69). The quote showed he did not have mercy and he is changing from decent to savagery. Like Adolf Hitler, he is political allegory. He often disregard Ralph’s rule and tries to invalidate the power of the conch on part of island by saying “The conch does not work on the mountain, only at the beach.” (38). His bad temper and savagery will later cause the death of Piggy and Simon.
In our society, people are often cruel to one another in the want for personal gain, but this is restrained to mere social interactions and online in our industrial world. However, when we are separated from civilized society and the pressures that it places upon us, we are quick to turn to savage, cruel behavior to survive. Golding understood this idea, that we are only civilized when others are watching, and showed the possibility for even the purest to become affected by societal pressures in his novel, the Lord of the Flies. In order to show the role of cruelty in shaping the novel Lord of the Flies, Golding uses character archetypes, the idea of cosmic irony, and extended symbolism to highlight the inherent flaws of human nature and the potential for even the purest individuals to turn to cruel ways due to societal pressures.
When the debate of whether humanity is fundamentally good-hearted or wicked is brought to attention, people tend to focus on the evil around them since there is an abundance of it, and throughout William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, and the literary elements of foreshadowing and internal conflict, he proves that humans are essentially evil.
Pigs in the novel are one of the sources of Jack’s alteration to savagery as the pig-hunts turned him into a cold-hearted and bloodthirsty being. At the beginning of the novel when Ralph, Jack and Simon go off to explore the island, they discover a piglet tangled in the creepers. Jack attempts to kill the pig but couldn’t succeed because the idea “of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh...the unbearable blood” (41) was too dark and evil for him. However, he vows that “next time there would be no mercy” (42). This statement is an initiation to his change in character because after that, he is involved in many hunts. He eventually paints his face to form a mask “behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness” (89). The mask gives him not only a change in appearance but also gives him different identity. Golding describes Jack as follows: “He looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger…” (89). The author tells the readers that Jack is no longer himself; he has turned into a complete stranger. Subsequently, Jack establishes a ritualistic chant within his “tribe” after killing a pig; “Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Spill her blood!” (96). Jack makes it seem like a celebration or something “fun” however the chant truly symbolizes the evil within him and loss of morals he once had. Furthermore, his desire for hunting
Jack is proud of himself for torturing a sow in a bloody and disastrous way. Because Jack desires that seductive meat. whether obtained through killing or not, fueling his sense of evil and vividly illustrating his affinity for savagery. Unlike Ralph, Jack is not as concerned about being rescued; instead, he wants to have fun, kill animals for food, and exert influence over the other boys. While Jack attempts to assert his freedom and evade conflict with Ralph by changing the subject, his gradual descent into madness is evident whenever the other boys join him in
Throughout the beginnings of the novel Jack constantly yearns to hunt and kill the pigs that evaded him in Chapter 1. In Chapter
Therefore, Golding implies that underneath all of the laws, rules and government that has been established within humans, there lies a darkness and evil that is waiting to be unleashed. Firstly, numerous symbols such as the beast, the “Lord of the Flies”, the conch and painted faces and long hair emphasize the darkness in man’s heart. Next, through the apparent transformation of the boys, including Jack, Roger, and Ralph we learn that humans will devolve into their true being without civilization. Finally, the violent behaviour that is associated with the boys clearly demonstrates that without rules man is more than capable of being inhumane towards all creatures. It is through all of this Golding establishes the idea that every single person is born evil. Golding suggests that savagery is innate
While Jack and his hunters started out as just choirboys, they become obsessed with violence and are driven to kill. In the beginning of the book, Jack hesitates and misses his chance to kill a trapped pig. Later on, as Jack and his newly formed tribe hunt in the forest, they discover a sow. Following the desperate chase after
In William Golding's novel Lord of The Flies he shows how evil exists inside of everyone, it is the situation a person finds themselves in allows evil to grow or be controlled. The three boys are an example of this. Jack who only thinks about himself he wants everything immediately which makes his evil grow. Ralph, however, thinks about others but at times can be selfish which can make his evil grow, but Ralph tries to keep his evil at bay. Simon on the other hand only thinks about others, he does not think about himself which stops his evil from arising. Therefore, control of the situation is control of evil self.
Often people don’t realize the evil inside of them until it is too late for them to make a change. In the novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, a twelve year old British boy named Ralph, along with a group of plane crash survivors are put up against the dangers of a humanless island. They face the struggles of starting a fire, hunting for food, and running an organized society. Although they start out as one group, they divide because of the urge to have fun instead of focusing on surviving and being rescued . William Golding’s message about human nature is that there is evil in all people because without the structure adults provide, the boys were unable to prevent the savage inside of them from coming out. The hunters along with Ralph used one of their own as the center of their killing dances, everyone on the island participated in the killing of the innocent Simon, and the hunters viciously
Evil: A noun meaning profound immorality, wickedness, and depravity. Everyone has a little bit of evil in them, but it’s up to that person if they want to show it or not. In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, a group of boys show the evil within themselves while being stranded on an island. Because of the situation that has been thrust upon them, they soon discover the true evil they are capable of. In the book, the boys show evil through their lust for power, the behavior that the boys express, and their murderous actions.
Jack and the others know about the beast but are scared of it and don’t know what to do about it. Jack boasts, “I cut the pig’s throat said jack proudly and yet twitched as he said it.”(69). Jack did not feel any remorse for the pig. The author explains jack’s state of mind when he says, “His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it taken away its life like a long satisfying drink. He spread his arms wide. “You should have seen the blood”.”(70) this show jack becoming a little mad.. Ralph has come to talk to jack about stealing piggy's glasses. “Jack made a rush and stabbed at Ralph's chest with his spear.... They were chest to chest, breathing fiercely, pushing and glaring ”(177). Jack is angry at ralph. Next “After Piggy's death and the conch being destroyed See That's what you'll get I meant that There isn't a tribe for you anymore The conch is gone” (181). Jack has killed or stole ralph tribe members. In the real life people use things and money to get people to do what they
Working Title The innate evil that lies in man’s heart is a polarizing topic that has spanned centuries. It is the belief of many that man is in a constant struggle with this inner darkness, quixotically most would like to believe that good prevails unconditionally. However, oftentimes this is not the case. William Golding was one such a person who shared this view that evil can vanquish good and this is reflected in his novel Lord of the Flies.