Good Vs. Evil : The Lord Of The Flies And Wwii

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.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding was influenced strongly by his experiences as a naval officer during World War II. Golding’s wartime service gave him a darker and more realistic look on life, and contributed to the novel’s imagery. As Golding described, World War II woke him up from his falsified beliefs about human nature by showing him the true human condition (“Lord of the Flies,” Novels 175). Lord of the Flies, as Golding explained, is “an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature” (qtd. in “Lord of the Flies,” Novels 189). William Golding based much of Lord of the Flies on his World War II experiences, which provided for a more realistic and accurate

It took place during the same time, and many ideas and events are very similar. The Holocaust was a huge inspiration on Golding's book, and like the Holocaust,

Lord of the Flies has been considered a literary classic throughout many generations, in spite of it’s perplexing and depressing aspects. Written in 1954 with the timeframe of the next world war, a novel such as this is bound to have some out-dated concepts,language, and elements. The characters are a great example of this.

Lord of the Flies is a chilling work about human savagery and the flow of power. Golding uses symbolism, characterization, and description to illustrate the occurrences and the underlying themes in the novel. The work has an ominous but irresistible tone that Golding lays out through his description of the island. Golding makes the island seem sinister and irresistible by writing,” The shore was fledged with palm trees. These stood or leaned or reclined against the light and their green feathers were a hundred feet up in the air . . . Behind this was the darkness of the forest proper and the open space of the scar.” (Golding 4-5) His description of the palms being feathered gives an enticing pull to the beach, but the darkness of the

After World War II countries were in shambles, overran with fear that was fueled by the abundance of hate and violence that stemmed from Germany. The plentiful amounts of evil William Golding was witnessing drove him to write Lord of the Flies. Form this, we can conclude that aspects of his story are an allegory to what Golding observed throughout the war. In his story, William Golding expresses the importance of a civilization’s nature to be ethically correct and explains that without the precise guidance, the natural savageness of humans can prevent society from thriving. Golding’s statement is correct because without society’s moral compass humans would revert to their savage nature, pray on the weak, and would be driven toward aggression.

    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

According to Lord of the Flies by William Golding, man is fundamentally evil at their core and war is inevitable. The boys on the island, much like men within war, suffer the fight within themselves between good and evil. Some of the children on the island, such as Piggy and Ralph, notice their loss of innocence but characters such as Jack and his hunters do not see this change because they are blinded by their own evil misdoings. From the plane crash to the inevitable rescue by the British naval officer, Golding uses irony to prove that war shows mankind’s hidden evil.

Lord of the Flies offers many relatable theories that can be applied to today’s society such as war’s negative effects and pressures. This book is derived from the author's experiences in the second World War and uses that insight to create a battle between young children. It caused me to connect the ending of the book with All Quiet on the Western Front, another novel about a gruesome war. Both books can be applied to the battles that are being fought today and the sacrifices our society makes to continue them. The texts show how the disputes may originate by wanting to defend countries and lives, but ultimately they destroy those things as well. When the boys became violent, two of their own were killed and the entire island was left in ruins.

Star Wars, Superman, James Bond—all of these are stories which chronicle the ever-present warfare between good and evil. What exactly is good? How does one describe evil? The answers to these questions are highly subjective, and could be debated for years on end without ever reaching a final conclusion. However, it is widely agreed that each person is inherently born with two sides; one of which is good, the other evil. It is this sense of inherent good and evil in all of us that William Golding tried to warn and protect society against in his classic, The Lord of the Flies.

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is known worldwide for its detailed theme and altering symbols. The novel tells the exhilarating story of a group of young British boys stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash. Lord of the Flies examines the barbaric side of humans as the boys, one by one, turn against one another. William Golding had the ability to see the worst in human nature and identify how “decent minded” people can easily be swayed to act in ghastly ways towards others. Golding’s vision is recalled from his time served in World War II. Lieutenant Golding fought planes, submarines, and battle ships at the sinking of the Bismarck. He goes on to explain, “I began to see what people were capable of doing. Anyone who moved through

The author of the book Lord of the Flies, William Golding published this loss of innocence fiction novel post World War II. During this time, the Nazi’s were being heavily criticized by the public for supporting Hitler’s evil ways. In this allegory Golding’s central theme is depicted in this excerpt, “It was simply what seemed sensible for me to write after the war when everyone was thanking God we weren’t Nazis” (Golding). This theme is an accurate representation of the story as it displays how even the most kindhearted, civilized individual can be manipulated into committing acts of evil. Ultimately, the adventurous plot clearly demonstrates how a person with sound morals can lose his or her innocence and turn into

Many things such as social and political environments can impact literature. British involvement in WWII directly influenced Golding's novel, Lord of the Flies. As all authors use their life and times as reference points in their works, Golding drew heavily on sociological, cultural, and military events. Lord of the Flies is an allegorical parallel to the world, as Golding perceived it. The island, the boys, and many other objects and events described in his work represent Golding's view of the world and humankind in general. He specifically incorporates characteristics and values reflective of the British culture.

World War II caused an amount of destruction and harm that no human being had ever seen before, many were disgusted and outraged by the results of this war. It was a very memorable event; one that authors tend to write about a lot, even to this day. One author in particular, WIlliam Golding, uses his world famous piece of literature Lord of the Flies as a political allegory to World War 2. In his classic novel, he shows little boys who are flown out to avoid the danger of being bombed and become trapped on an island. While they are trapped, the boys develop separate ways of leading each other which leads to conflict and violence, similar to the governments in which were clashing with each other during World War 2 at the time. Through the differences of these boys, Golding shows to us how they relate to the major leaders of World War 2 (Hitler, Franklin Roosevelt, and Neville Chamberlain), and how democracy is the best way to govern people.

Albert Einstein is considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century. He is known for developing the theories of relativity. He is also noted for his mathematical formula of E = mc² (David Bodanis). Although he was not directly involved in the Manhattan Project, which was responsible for creating the atomic bomb, but he is still considered the mastermind because of his breakthrough formula. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect (A. Calaprice & T. Lipscombe).