Human Nature In Lord Of The Flies

The Defects in Society are the Defects of Human Nature in Lord of the Flies

Throughout Lord of the Flies, Golding shows his views of the inherent evil of humans. He shows how humans can be in such a savage state, practically mimicking the way of life of their prehistoric ancestors. He exemplifies this with acts of carnage carried on by the young stranded children. It all started with a slight urge to hunt down a pig and then continued on to murdering another human being. Golding shows his views best at the end of the book with the boys being rescued by a Navy crew, which would go on to war it self.

It is a very arguable subject on whether or not people are born with good intentions, and therefore taught by others the ‘evil’ side of their personality. Whether it is the absence of ethical conduct in human nature, or just the way one perceives a situation, evil seems to be prominent in our everyday lives. Humans seem to have a moral code that follows them with every decision they make, yet despite the laws of morality and society, people of this world still seem to behave inhumanely because of the act of self-preservation, human interest, and who exactly the authority figure is at the time.

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.

Even though this is the most logical thing to do in their situation, instead all the boys’ are just playing around like little kids. This is a common trait in kids because they don’t like dealing with activities that involve hard work; they are more interested in living their lives freely without any concerns. Due to all of Ralph’s methods of surviving on the island involve working, while Jack’s involve having “fun,” it is clear that the kids would be interested in Jack. This approach of using fun against kids reveals how individual’s attentiveness is an effective way for leveraging them into getting their attention towards yourself; this is exactly what Jack succeeds in.

Imagine being stranded on an island without hope or assurance of help being on the way. This is the scenario William Golding presents in his novel, Lord of the Flies. Golding uses many symbols throughout his novel to help shape the theme of how the flaws of human nature create the flaws within a society. Jack and Ralph interact throughout Golding’s novel to demonstrate how the flaws in human nature cause the flaws and chaos in a society. Jack begins to show his oppressiveness and power hungry characteristic not too long after he separates himself from Ralph.

To start off, Jack is guiltless at the beginning of the novel, until he turns himself into a new person. For one, Jack wants laws and organization at the start and wants to discipline whoever violates them and eventually he is the first to contravene them. Furthermore, Jack is the initial one to influence the boys to infringe the rules and destruct the

By the story’s end, all of the boys but Ralph had become savages, leaving a sour taste in the reader’s mouth, but also providing many lessons about true human nature. Overall, Jack’s choices betray everybody on the island by potentially jeopardizing their rescue and, more importantly, by turning them into savages as well and completing the story’s intent to show humans in their natural

Lastly, being in an uncivilized environment, without rules or consequences, the innate evil is revealed once again when Jack and his tribe attack Ralph. At the commencement of this book, it was one mighty group of young boys fighting for their survival and

community. In Lord of the Flies, one key concern is the role of the individual in society. Many of the problems on the island such as the lack of shelters because the boys would rather play, the mass abandonment of Ralph’s camp, the murder of Piggy and Simon and the extinguishing of the signal fire because Jacks hunters fail to tend it on schedule. The boys would rather fulfill their individual desires than cooperate as a coherent society, which would require that each child acts for the positive of the group. Individualism vs. community can be embodied by Jack the antagonist and Ralph the protagonist.

In the novel ‘Lord of the Flies’ written by William Golding, Jack is an important character who helps me to understand the message “people can descend into savagery, when there are no rules to follow.” An example of this is Jack, who at the beginning of the novel believes in rules and doing things properly, but by the end the beast within him comes to surface. At the beginning of the novel Jack was civilized and wanted rules; when Jack first arrived on the island he insisted on rules. Jacks order and control is shown when unlike other boys, Jack does not take his school uniform off to go swimming and when he says “I ought to be chief, because I am chapter chorister and head boy, and I can sing c sharp.” Jack entered the novel a lot differently to when he left, he wanted rules and a leader.

Human nature is the “general psychological characteristics, feelings, and behavioral traits of humankind”. Between the Book, Lord of the flies and The Crucible, human nature is strongly portrayed through similar characters such as Simon and Mary Warren, Satan/Devil and the Beast, and Jack and Abigail. Simon and Mary Warren both share their wise and kind traits and being bringers of truth, while Satan/Devil and the Beast share the characteristic of exotic and the unknown, both are also able to bring out each person’s human nature like Jack and Abigail’s, which is consisted of being selfish liars. Lastly, Jack and Abigail, who both portray betrayal and the same characteristics of being evil, lying , and selfishness.

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

In viewing the aspects of the island society, the author William Golding's Lord of the Flies as a symbolic microcosm of society. He chooses to set the children alone in an unsupervised world, leaving them to learn ‘ the ways of the world’ in a natural setting first hand. Many different perspectives can also be considered. Golding's island of marooned youngsters becomes a microcosm. The island represents the individual human and the various characters represent the elements of the human psyche.

James Madison once said, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary”. But men are not angels and there is a need for government, because men are not inherently good. Throughout the novel, Lord Of The Flies, William Golding successfully portrays his view of human nature as inherently evil by the actions and thoughts of the boys who are stranded on an island. The catholic church’s standpoint that human nature is inherently good is overpowered by William Golding’s view. William’s view is expressed throughout the Lord Of The Flies through the savagery in the book, the desire to kill/ hunt, and the loss of their innocence.