Although there is controversy about the creation of human life, there is little to deny the primitive behavior exhibited by the earliest humans. Over time, humanity learned, changed, and developed into what it is today. Despite a change in appearance and education, humans have never lost their primal inclinations. Throughout his novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding reveals humanity’s barbaric roots through the gradual deterioration of the boys’ uniforms.
Progressively through the novel, the boys’ clothes are used as an example to represent the declining importance of order. For example, when Jack and the boys first land on the beach, they “marched approximately in step in two parallel lines and [were] dressed in strangely eccentric clothing” (Golding 19). This illustrates a direct correlation between the uniforms and societal order. When the boys are fully clothed, they behave orderly and civilized. Over time, the boys shed their uniforms and begin acting more primitive and hectic. Jack, now painted and predatorial, begins to lead chants after his hunts, yelling, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” (152). These chants portray the chaotic mindset instilled into Jack as the days and weeks have rolled by on the island. He is nearly naked at the time, wearing mainly clay paint and brandishing a knife when needed. In this way, he parallels early humans who wore only what they needed to survive and had weapons on hand to hunt. Eventually, the boys sport paint as
Mankind is, by nature, an evil, vile, and savage species. This is nowhere more apparent than in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a novel detailing the adventures of a group of shipwrecked British schoolboys, who must survive on an uncharted Pacific island, while seeking rescue and order. Golding’s exploration of Man’s inherent wickedness is no more apparent in Chapter Nine, “A View to a Death”, in which the group of boys, in a riotous ceremony, brutally murder one of their own. The many events of the book lead to one conclusion: In Lord of the Flies, William Golding propagates the idea that Mankind is inherently inclined towards savagery and evil, which is conveyed via symbolism, juxtaposition, and foreshadowing.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding highlights humans’ descent from civilization into savagery. Although savagery overcomes some of the boys so easily, it is not as easy for others to escape their conditioning from society and go completely savage. In the beginning, the majority of the boys try to bring order to the island while others show signs of savagery very early on. Eventually when hardship and tensions increases, there are still a few boys who keep resisting savagery. Also, even when the savagery and evil start to become prevalent in the boys’ actions, they continue to resist the rejection of social rules and guidelines. It is hard for the boys to abandon the only thing they know.
Humans are a sophisticated and advanced race, one which possess the ability to affect their environment, and one another, in significant and often destructive ways. War is a catastrophic event created by humans, who upon creating it neglect to comprehend its far-reaching effects. The novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, places a group of prepubescent males into one of these situations. After an evacuation aircraft crash-lands, the boys are left upon a deserted island to manage and fend for themselves. As Golding details the trials and tribulations of the young men on the island, it becomes increasingly apparent that the children respect authority and require an organized leadership. The failure to manifest such a system will result in a de-evolution into savagery.
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.
(T) Jack rules the boys with meat, freedom, and fear, which the boys gravitate towards. (E) Jack likes to taunt the boys with killing and hunting, which makes him look like a bully, especially when “ [Jack] giggled and flicked them while the boys laughed at his reeking palms. Then Jack grabbed Maurice and rubbed the stuff over his cheeks . . . Right up her
Everyone likes to think of themselves as a “good” person. We believe by putting our change in the tip jar or letting someone cross the street, we have a decent sense of morals. But in reality, humans take pleasure in succumbing to their id, the primitive sense of desire and aggression in all of us. We satisfy our id by yelling at a sibling for trivial reasons or lusting for someone because of their attractive appearance. By tracking the condition of the boy's’ hair in William Golding’s allegory “Lord of the Flies,” Golding’s criticism of the civilized and savage manner is revealed.
Firstly, the boys tried to show dominance on the island by undertaking unjust acts. Jack was frustrated because his prey would spot him and run before he could exterminate them, and so he decided to disguise himself to blend in with his surroundings: “He rubbed the charcoal stick between the patches of red and white on his face… He looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but an awesome stranger” (Golding 66). By painting their faces, the boys assumed they showed the beast that they are also beasts inside. Therefore, they tried to portray how powerful they are. Consequently, they start to descend into savagery. They did this buy involving themselves in inhumane acts such as killing pigs, metaphorically raping pigs, and killing one and other. Furthermore,
There is a quote by Edmund Burke, “man is the cruelest animal”, that perfectly describes the truth about human nature; that humanity, at its core, is an evil species. William Golding acknowledges this fact in his 1954 novel, Lord of the Flies. Throughout the novel, Golding highlights the cruelty of children, the carelessness of their actions, and the evilness present in the very fabric of society.
The true nature of man is something that has been debated constantly throughout both literary and philosophical history. Many exceptional individuals have argued both man’s innate innocence and his savagery. In the award-winning novel, Lord of the Flies, author William Golding expertly establishes that man’s nature is to behave malevolently when afraid through his effective use of symbolism, archetype, and allegory. One way that William Golding demonstrates that man behaves maliciously when frightened is through his application of symbolism.
William Golding is heavily influenced by his service to the royal navy and the events of World War One. “Human beings are savage by its nature, and are moved by urges toward brutality and dominance over others”. This is a recurring issue in William Golding’s, Lord Of The Flies. Not only where characters demonstrate elements of human nature beyond civilized human beings as they were struggling in a society with no rules nor civilization, but also as the novel is Golding’s attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The world is an evil place within which living without fear would be a dream come true. The fear inside the boys had a major negative impact on the dramatic change of human nature
The most immanent form of savagery is coded into human genetics. In 1954, when Lord of The Flies was released, Golding stated the theme of the story as, “an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature,”. This implicitly states how the defect of barbarism isn’t learned but rather innate in all beings. Simon also realizes this when discussing the true meaning of the beast. The novel states, “What I mean is… maybe it’s only us.” Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s essential illness” (Golding, 96). This quote suggests that Simon is comprehending what is going on and foresees the consequences, which is the dominance of savagery. He refers to savagery as “mankind’s essential illness”. Although savagery is associated with negative aspects, the sole purpose in human genetics is for protection. However, as humans evolved and became civilized, this instinct was cut out from life. Despite this, savagery still exists within humans. In Lord of The Flies, a group of boys are stranded on a desolate island that forces them to behave abnormally and they
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is a gritty allegory of adolescence, innocence, and the unspoken side of human nature. Countless social issues are portrayed, however one of the most reoccurring is the nature of man. Throughout the novel there is an ever-present focus on the loss of innocence amongst the boys, shown by the deterioration of social skills and their retrogression into a barbaric form of society. Also portrayed is the juxtaposition of a cruel, evil main character and a more classically good counterpart, and their eternal rivalry for power and authority over their younger subjects. Does society or the lack thereof create evil in human nature, or simply magnify a pre-existing
“All human beings are commingled out of good & evil” was a quote once said by notable Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. This quotation discusses and supports William Golding’s, the author of Lord of the Flies, belief that all humans have a distinct character flaw that, when left unchecked by morals and laws of society, will eventually corrupt the individual. In Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, it’s shown how due to their environment and lack of supervision, the young boys slowly progress and evolve into barbaric, bloodthirsty individuals.
Despite the progression of civilization and society's attempts to suppress man's darker side, moral depravity proves both indestructible and inescapable; contrary to culturally embraced views of humanistic tendencies towards goodness, each individual is susceptible to his base, innate instincts. In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, seemingly innocent schoolboys evolve into bloodthirsty savages as the latent evil within them emerges. Their regression into savagery is ironically paralleled by an intensifying fear of evil, and it culminates in several brutal slays as well as a frenzied manhunt. The graphic consequence of the boys' unrestrained barbarity, emphasized by the
“Isolation is a dream killer” (Barbara Sher). In the novel Lord of the Flies written by William Golding, kids stranded on an island must figure out how to survive. By hunting pigs and building shelters the kids tried to subsist on the island. Through the process of hunting, the kids became cruel, evolving to the point of being barbaric. Thus, through the barbaric actions of the boys and the outside world, Golding shows that savagery exists in all people.