Good And Evil In Lord Of The Flies

(Law and Order) "We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything. So we've got to do the right things." (Golding 42)

“There is a way that seemeth right unto man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” (The Bible, Prov. 16:25). Thoughts that come to men stem from their participation in society or their natural state of good and evil. However, society’s morals mask the natural man—who is more vulnerable to natural evil than good. Because of this, every man is susceptible to ignorance and savagery. William Golding exemplifies this idea in his novel Lord of the Flies. When a group of military boys find themselves stranded on a deserted island, their ignorance soon leads to the inevitable savagery present in the end of the novel. The maturation process of Ralph illustrates the fight between man’s tendencies of natural evil and natural good when morals

(Violence) "Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering.” (Golding 114-115)

When the boys first arrive on the island, they are all nothing but British school boys who had lived in society where rules and regulations are established. The rules and regulations,

In Lord Of The Flies by William Golding, Golding claims that no matter how civilized or innocent all human beings are, the surrounding environment can change how people interact with each other and turn them from civilized beings into savages. He uses Jack to show that when human nature does not have any restraints, it will slowly evolve into savagery. Jack at first is a respectful, civilized person that is willing to communicate and cooperate with Ralph, but when confronting with the act of killing a pig makes him lose all sense of shame and conscience, he starts acting evil and wanting to hunt Ralph. By the end of the novel, Golding ultimately shows that everyone is capable of being evil and it is only society’s rules that keep most individuals from acting out evil.

One of the biggest forms of adversity with which the boys struggled was undoubtedly learning to cope and overcome the fear the littluns had instilled upon themselves associated with ‘the beast’. Golding does this by changing the way Ralph handles the crisis and changing his basic survival instincts back to that of the society the boys have left behind and learn to be compassionate towards the obviously scared young boys. This is obvious because throughout the book Ralph has been harsh, we can see this most in the first few chapters where he himself is obviously scared at the prospect of surviving with no adult help or guidance, we can see this through the way Golding has made Ralph speak and react to the other characters, such as his harshness to another key figure in the book, Piggy. An example of this is the fact that Ralph continuously tells Piggy to ‘Shut up’. However, when he understands the littluns fear of ‘the beast’, his tone softens and he understands that they need to be protected and looked after to feel safe, this is obvious because he made sure

The Lord of the Flies by William Golding is tale of a group of young boys who become stranded on a deserted island after their plane crashes. Intertwined in this classic novel are many themes, most that relate to the inherent evil that exists in all human beings and the malicious nature of mankind. In The Lord of the Flies, Golding shows the boys' gradual transformation from being civilized, well-mannered people to savage, ritualistic beasts.

    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

In the Lord of the Flies by William Golding, he uses the idea of good and evil throughout

During this chapter, Ralph holds a serious meeting with the boys and reminds them of the old rules and new ones. After laying out the rules, Ralph discusses why “things are breaking up” (page 82). The biggest cause of this break-up is because the boys keep on ignoring the important rules. Ralph is very set on having rules because he believes they are extremely necessary, but many of the boys do not agree. This frustrates Ralph immensely because it makes their society chaotic and disordered. Though none of the boys, with the exception of Piggy and Simon, seem to agree with him, which shows that Ralph is already starting to lose his power as chief.

The difference between good and evil is something that others find debatable. Everyone has their own beliefs and opinions of what these words mean to them. Good meaning “the ability to empathize with other people, to feel compassion...if necessary, sacrificing your own well-being for the sake of others” (Source B). Meanwhile, the interpretation is the lack of empathy, being vain, view other people as objects. They only care about themselves and it’s hard for them to empathise.

Evil is not on the outside, but deep on the inside of man. Golding with his novel, Lord of the Flies, demonstrates this evil using symbolism. Readers do not realize the deeper meaning behind each chapter of the book. Through symbols, Golding illustrated how evil is everywhere in society. In Lord of the Flies, Golding reveals the darkness inside a man and thus the importance of society which is a theme that is still important for students today.

Society sets a structure that keeps human beings in order. When people are confronted with a feeling of danger or a threat to their survival, the evil that is deep inside them comes out. In the novel The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, young boys are taken out of society and placed on an isolated island and forced to survive. After ‘the war’ Golding realizes that everyone could be Nazis based upon the horror that he saw from mankind, which is evident. Although individuals are deemed innocent within society, evil lives inside everyone and is brought out when structure is no longer in existence.

Throughout history, there are many instances where society is overcome by evil, creating a negative impact on humanity. Hitler is a prime example where due to the evil within him and the desire to obtain power, he was able to make a totalitarian society that commits a mass murder of millions of people: the Holocaust (BBC n.d). What does Hitler’s Holocaust and William Golding’s novel has in common? There is the similar theme of evil that a human possesses causes and influences a society to become destructive. This is ultimately the reason why the boys started to fall apart as the novel progresses.

It was a surprise that the majority of the boys were found healthy with no survival or hunting skills. But unfortunately, we have been told that some boys are presumed dead but the cause for their deaths are still unknown. We have interviewed many of the victims such as Ralph and he has told us the difficulties faced throughout the island such as lack of food and shelter. “Jack and Ralph were best friends but the island turned them into enemies and Jack became blood thirsty to kill Ralph” said Eric. Numerous other boys had told that they had lost all hope of rescue and they were planning to stay on the island till the day they die. These young schoolboys were on the island for a very short time, but due to the dark memories of the island, this is a tragedy that these young schoolboys will never