Hobbes Lord Of The Flies Quote Analysis

As a base of human desire and need, power has always been one of the number one desire of mankind since the dawn of time. To place yourself above others, or gain control over your followers or a situation brings safety and comfort to a leader. A well written example of this concept lies within the twisted world created by William Golding in his, “Lord of the Flies”. Throughout the story, Jack seeks power above all else, and stops for nothing in this lustful quest of dominance. We can get a glimpse of Jack’s desires through his iron grip within his choirboys, how he clashes with Ralph, and how Jack’s actions bring about a deeper symbolism underlying within the story.

(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)

The power-hungry will often feel the need for absolute control, hardly ever getting what they desire, they will often be portrayed as crazy and vicious. The same can be said for Jack; all he wants is to be the leader and make the decisions, but Ralph is the one in control. Jack’s desire for power is ruining his own image, and the well being of the other boys. Without the supervision of adults his morals and values took a turn for the worst.

Many of Hobbes’ beliefs are portrayed in Lord of the Flies by Golding. Hobbes believes that people are naturally evil and bad and many characters in the book, such as Jack, represent this. William Golding fulfills Hobbes’ ideas about man with Lord of the Flies in the moments when Jack and his group tries to raid Ralph to get Piggy’s glasses to make fires, when Jack and Ralph continuously argued over the best way to lead the group, and when Jack planned on killing Ralph to get full control and power over the boys.

In William Golding’s Lord of The Flies, the detriments of an unrefined civilization, such as one without leadership and indulgent citizens who are amoral, can be catastrophic, causing extreme repercussions to society. A lack of solid leadership, such as the arbitrary leader Ralph, can cause confusion, apprehension, and chaos. Jack and other children often indulge their impulses which clouds their judgement causing them to undermine their society. By not reinforcing the difference between savagery and humanity, many people begin to die. Ralph clearly is not well-equipped to lead a group of young men.

In the novel Lord of the Flies, the author, William Golding, portrays a story about children that are stranded on an island with no adults to take charge and leadership; therefore, the children have to create their own system of government so they can survive. Throughout the story, there is a development of characters and each character represents various personalities and specific aspects of philosophies. Jack, Simon, and Ralph are the main focus throughout the book and their way of thinking is quite different from one another resulting in constant arguments.

The story “lord of the flies’’ by William Golding, the novel correlates to the philosophical views of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. John Locke was an English philosopher that surmised man's natural moral compass would point towards good, Locke's philosophical writings stated “ that individuals in a state of nature would have stronger moral limits on their actions. Essentially, Locke thought that our human nature was characterized by reason and tolerance. People, Locke believed, were basically good’’ ( Locke and Hobbes Overview 2). John Locke thought if people were given no rules they would make a paradise, flourishing in law, order, and structure, Thomas Hobbes believed people were naturally cruel and chaotic, with a need of a strong ruler to make decisions. Hobbes stated, “Who felt that mankind was inherently evil and required a strong central authority to ward off this inclination toward an immoral behavior, Locke believed that human nature allowed men to be selfish’’( Locke and Hobbes Overview 2 ). Thomas Hobbes believed a strong iron-fisted ruler was needed for the safety and well being of a society. The ideals of man in a natural state, follow Thomas Hobbes philosophical view represented through Jack's brutish and monarch like attitude which lead to them living in a dystopian society.

Ralph: We need an assembly. Not for fun. Not for laughing and falling off the log.

“There isn’t anyone to help you. Only me. And I’m the Beast--Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! Said the head. You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s a no go? Why things are the way they are?” (page 206)

The emotional behavior and irrationality of human nature guarantees that any society created by people will be plagued with defects and flaws, particularly the disownment of logic and reason. This is due to the reality that people act on emotion and instinct rather than on logic and rationality, causing humans to be, by nature, corrupt and narcissistic. As a result, people are inclined to fulfill their selfish desires, causing them to reject order and democracy, and instead embrace the development of chaos and anarchy. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies documents the story of a coalition of schoolboys, stranded on an island, and how the society that they form devolves into turmoil. Evaluating how Piggy is rejected due to his unseemly appearance and ideas, his respect for order and peace in contrast with the boys’ lust for destruction, as well as Piggy’s attempts and overall

“Later, Michelle tries talking to me. She explains why nobody could help me when it rained. “We don’t force the students to listen, Wren. We can’t stop the rain. Or the sun, or the wind. We can only help you prepare for it. If you’re unwilling to listen to take advice, that’s your choice. (Van Draanen, 67)

Lord of the Flies is an extraordinarily well-written novel that teaches one how to live life. When asked about the philosophy of the book, the author, William Golding, replied, "The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectful." This completely exemplifies the theme of the novel. Lord of the Flies truly shows that it is not the government that determines survival, it is the sheer human nature in all of us that proves whether a society can function. A person's personality will always trump another person's because of difference

Throughout Lord of the Flies, he inserts one strong message into the reader’s mind. Golding portrays that regulations keep man from acting upon the savagery of the human condition by using Ralph’s domestic community, Jack’s savage ways of leading, and other significant symbols to make Lord of the Flies a political allegory. Ralph creates a civil community with rules to keep savagery from overtaking the boys. In chapter 5, Ralph stresses the importance of laws to keep order, “The rocks for a lavatory.

Hobbes theory of human nature depict that man selfishly seek for self-protection, unmindful of the negative consequences. Man only appeal to their passion and vulnerability. “ We’ll hunt. I’m going to be chief. They nodded, and the crisis passed easily. And then-about the beast … I say this. We aren’t going to bother about the beast… Yes! Forget the beast!” (Golding, 133). Jack’s passion is to hunt and kill, hence the boys feel comforted knowing that their fears would be diminished under Jack’s ruling. Nonetheless, under Jack’s command, there was anarchy.

Do people fear the dark, or is it that they fear what may lie in the depths of darkness? A beast is a beast, whether it be a figment of one’s imagination, or a creature that has the ability to instill fear in a person. What if the beast, that humans as a whole fear, is fear itself? (That’s a bit too much of a cliche though.) It is considered instinctive to fear,-to have fear-however we only fear what we don’t understand; does that mean it is that we fear human instinct? William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, brings a lot to the table of thought with his symbolic novel representing the ideals of a one Thomas Hobbes; the true beast is the human’s savage state of nature, and Golding utilizes child characters to further convey this idea.