Lord Of The Flies Essay : Morality And Morality

He has no initial reaction to the news of her death, and at her funeral service he did not bother to even see her before she was buried. His lack of emotion is evident in the very first lines of the book, “Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don’t know.” This shows that Meursault is hardly caring for his mother. Society’s standards would result in him to be in absolute mourning and wanting to go as fast as possible to her body. This is not the only example of Meursault’s lack of emotion and care for factors in his life. He does not care for love and marriage after having intercourse with someone; the society standard at this time was to get married if two partners had intercourse. He does not care for promotion and career advancement when his boss offers him a better job opportunity; the standard at that time and right now is to pursue the best career possible. In these scenarios Meursault is living free from the chains, and does whatever he thinks is right to do. Eventually, society rejects him and his ways, and he gets in trouble with the law. He is judged by society and his ways are ridiculed, making Meursault appear to be a monster.

2. On page 10, Meursault says that at the viewing of his mother, he felt as if the elderly people there were judging him. Offer a conjecture about why he might have had that feeling. (It is worth paying attention to such references to "judgment" because they occur several times throughout the work.)

“You inherit your environment just as much as your genes”(Rich). Having the capability of choosing right from wrong is a blessing. But what would happen if people were forced into a dangerous situation and had to do anything to survive? Would their beliefs change? What would push them to the edge? Would their changes be the effect of either their environment or biological factors? In the novel “The Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, adolescent boys find themselves,without adult supervision, stranded on an island when their plane crashes down during warfare. The boys savage and immoral behavior, shown at the end of the novel, is the outcome of their environment. The boys situation drives them to have a change of morals, change their way

There is hardly ever a man clever enough to recognize the full extent of the evil he does. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, one could argue that man, in the state of nature, is born evil. The boys in the novel, represent a metaphorical idea in which they are born unto the island, and manifest mankind’s true nature. As the story progresses, the boys construct a society and ruin it. They revert to the primitive association in which fear and tyranny lead to ultimate rule. All of the boys that try to do the proper and befitting deeds are killed off. This violently throws them unto impending doom, thus proving that men are born evil.

William Golding’s morality tale, Lord of the Flies, illustrates the true ideas about human nature by telling the tale of preteenage British boys who get stranded on an isolated island and must fight to survive. The novel highlights the importance of law and order in a functioning society and the moral that all humans are essentially evil.

t the beginning of the film there are signs of moral order, most of which are lessons held over from the time before they came to the island. They are, at first, wearing their given school uniforms, complete with ties and badges. Those who would later become the most beastly are at the beginning dressed the most meticulously: the choir boys, in robes. These also sing a song which is patently borrowed from the time before. Piggy, whose physical weakness makes him a liability in a strength-based society, but whose social acumen makes him an asset in a civilized place, comes equipped with glasses which make fire possible; in this way he is the boys’ own Prometheus and represents intelligence robbed from the time before, when the boys lived among the adults, who function as the gods of the story. The boys also value, at first, everyone having equal say and everyone being heard, and to enable this they adopt the custom of the conch whereby whosoever holds the shell has the proverbial floor, and all others must listen. They all agree they must band together under a leader, who shall be chosen by popular vote, and they all agree upon a division of responsibilities. One such responsibility, considered primary by Ralph who is chosen leader, is to maintain the fire, which burns as a symbol of hope for the future return to the life before the island.

The novel starts out with Meursault getting a telegram saying that his mother had died. He takes time off work to go to her funeral and completely fail to show the emotion that the reader expects to see of a son towards his recently passed mother. First and foremost, when he arrives, the coffin is

Through the death of Madame Meursault, Camus develops Meursault’s character and views past the initial apathy he feels towards everything. Meursault’s lack of emotions is first seen in his actions at his mother’s vigil. The novel begins with Meursault stating “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.” (1) One could try to justify this uncertainty by saying that Meursault is grieving and cannot be expected to remember everything except that as the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Meursault is just plain indifferent when he smokes during the vigil because it “didn’t matter” (10) and says his mother was “fairly” (16) old because he does not know her actual age. In not knowing how old Madame Meursault was or when she died, and in smoking when he should have been grieving, Meursault reveals himself to be a phlegmatic character who could not care less about the fact that his mother just passed. When he chooses to smoke at the vigil, he betrays his own attitude about his mother’s death, that it did not actually matter or faze him in any way, a mindset typically viewed as abnormal. In a further show of idiosyncrasy, when his mother dies, rather than expand, Meursault makes a prison of his apartment by confining himself to one room. With Madame Meursault

In the beginning of the novel, an imperative quote that I found to be extremely breathtaking was the first display of sadness. As listed as my first quote, Meursault was given the opportunity to mourn his mother’s death, but instead does exactly the opposite. When he initially is asked to view his mother’s body he takes the opportunity to prioritize what is most vital

Likewise, his mother’s death hardly fazed Meursault and was more like a hindrance to his daily life. On the other hand, readers can not help but wonder if Meursault's attitude towards life is his own doing or one he learned from his

When his mother dies, he does not express traditional emotions following the death of a loved one. In fact, he does not like when others show these emotions at the funeral. As he describes, “We just sat there like that for quite a while. The woman’s sighs and sobs were quieting down. She sniffled a lot. Then finally she shut up...I even had the impression that the dead woman lying in front of them didn’t mean anything to them” (Camus 11). This harsh judgement towards those who show emotion portrays Meursault as remorseless, which the prosecutor uses against him in his trial. In reality, however, Meursault does not realize he is acting this way, he just does not put value on these feelings, like many other existentialists. At the very end of the novel, when Meursault is about to face his death, a chaplain visits him to try to convince him to pray and turn to God before he dies. Meursault does not believe in the idea of God, and argues with the chaplain regarding his life. In the heated argument, Meursault discusses, “But I was sure about me, about everything, surer than he could ever be, sure of my life and sure of the death I had waiting for me. Yes, that was all I had. But at least I had as much of a hold on it as it had on me. I had been right, I was still right, I was always right. I had lived my life one way and could just as well have lived it another” (Camus 121). This certainty that Meursault

In Meursault's case, he wanted to be free from superficial ideals that did not match his because this would create a disconnection between who he is and who society wants him to be. In suffering final judgment, he realizes he no longer has to bear the burden of existing on the terms of society and in their world. The last line in the novel, "I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate" (123), highlighting the freedom created by death. Meursault has created his own realm of reality with his own thoughts and ideals without acquiring societal norms. Furthermore, proceeding with his punishment he opened himself “gently from the indifference of the world” (122) because he appreciates that this will free him: no one has "the right" to intervene into his life. Thus, the "cries of hate" validates that Meursault will never exist in the society’s acceptance, but rather in a world of his own

The story begins with “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know” (3). The lines introduce Meursault’s key personality trait, his indifference. He simply states the facts and has little emotional expression when talking about his mother’s passing. At his mother's funeral, he felt others expected him to talk and show emotion and it made him uncomfortable.

The novel was written in a first person narrative, enabling us to peer inside Meursault’s inner world and his internal dialogue. This narrative style is confrontational as readers are thrust into a society suffused with uncertainty and discomfort, forced to empathise with the character. Standing out right at the beginning is Meursault’s apathy towards the death of his mother. The novel’s first lines are: “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.” (Camus, 2000) His thoughts were distant, devoid of emotion. The short and precise sentences in addition to the sparing use of transition words and phrases unsettle the reader. On examination, Meursault’s emotional spectrum was limited, oscillating in a mellow range from being “satisfied” to being “annoyed”. Things were only evaluated using simplistic words that portray the bare minimum such as “pleasant”, “unpleasant” or “boring”. All of the above shows existentialist ideas, how Meursault’s world was centered in the present, focused on physical rather than emotional stimuli. His actions were almost spontaneous, heavily dependent on his current mood and feelings. Events were dictated monotonously as they passed by. Meursault was “always preoccupied by what was about to happen, today or tomorrow”, his immediate reality. He displayed little care, regret or hesitation in his actions. This is concurrent with the existentialist

Meursault was sentenced to death, because his indifferent personality was seen as a threat to the moral standards that were established by the society at the time. The sentence was based on Meursault´s personality, rather than the actual killing of the Arab. Even today, people like Meursault live amongst us, and we must make sure that we do not discriminate against them and help them to integrate to the larger population. This is why I urge you to no longer ignore these kinds of people, who have a different view of the world than us, and to give valid and justified reasons when deciding whether something is morally correct or