Lord Of The Flies Hobbes Analysis

In Lord of the Flies by William Golding the different views and beliefs of Ralph and Jack and the need for power in both boys’ segregates the group and

With no adults around and being stranded on an island, the boys had to set out rules to maintain order. Ralph had been selected chief as he had blown the conch to bring the boys together. However, Jack believed he was the best option for chief as he said with simple arrogance, “I ought to be chief because I’m chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp (22).” Jack wanted to obtain power and ignore the other possibilities for a civilized society. This supports Hobbes belief as he believed people were born selfish.

A character in a novel can represent a larger idea in society. In William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, each character is illustrated to represent a larger idea in society. Ralph represents democracy, Jack represents savagery, and Piggy represents a scientific approach.

Born during a period of medieval philosophy, Thomas Hobbes developed a new way of thinking. He perfected his moral and political theories in his controversial book Leviathan, written in 1651. In his introduction, Hobbes describes the state of nature as an organism analogous to a large person (p.42). He advises that people should look into themselves to see the nature of humanity. In his quote, “ The passions that incline men to peace, are fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them,” Hobbes view of the motivations for moral behavior becomes valid because of his use of examples to support his theories, which in turn, apply to Pojman’s five purposes for morality.

There are different ways to run a society. A society can be run by a group of leaders, a dictator, or even no leader or dictator at all! Many philosophers have different points of views on how to run a society so people can live the best life. In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, different characters have different views on how to run a society. These views represent each of the philosophers view. Lord of the Flies is an allegory for the different philosophers’ speculations of “the state of nature.”

Thomas Hobbes then begins to explain that what any one man has another may take at will. Some men take pleasure in the conquest of what belongs to another and will take more than they need, while others are content with the bare essentials. Hobbes states that, because it is in man's nature to increase his own power it should be “allowed.” Hobbes states that there are three causes for quarrels between men, the first being competition and the want for man to gain from another through violence. The second is diffidence, or a lack of confidence in one’s own ability of worth which in turn causes men to fight for safety, perhaps to distract another from his insecurities. The third is for the sake of glory, or to secure his reputation. Thomas Hobbes says that, because all men have a natural animalistic inclination to fight for what we want and believe we deserve, a “common power”, a government or hierarchy of some sort, is vital to maintaining a semblance of peace. Hobbes muses that, without security outside of us there will be no industry or commodities, no modern comforts, no society. Without someone to lord over us in some way our future will be one of “continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short…” (pg. 48). And, while we enjoy the

he decides whether evil prevails over good or otherwise. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, Golding writes about a group of British military boys who are marooned in a strange island and they decide on how to get rescue. Ralph, one of the main characters in the novel portrays Civilization and race for emancipation, While Jack chooses to continually long for power and immortalises the passion for hunting.

Hobbes begins his argument by putting forth that the inherent evil principles of human nature lead to mankind’s continuous greed and desires. In society everyone would be constantly against another so that the state of nature will be an eternal state of warfare. In a similar design, William Golding also portrays this same idea. In Chapter Four, Golding describes the mental thoughts of Jack, a savage who is obsessed with power after killing his first pig on the secluded island: “His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink” (Golding 70). The violence from killing the boys’ first pig is the first yet very important step on the road toward savagery. Jack’s exhilaration disables him to think about anything other than the excitement from his first kill, including the act to maintain the essential signal fire for the common good. This act of murder brings satisfaction and a sense of superiority to Jack, proving Hobbes’ statement that human nature is destructive and violent in fulfilling Man’s inherent, constant desires. It is clear that Jack hunts to bring satisfaction to his natural desires for

Golding uses the characters from Lord of the Flies just as Shakespeare did to prove that man is turned to evil. The narrative illustrates a story about a group of British boys who get stranded on a deserted island without any adults. This lack of a stable society and presence of leadership forces the boys to create their own, and this works for the boys for a while. The boys turn themselves into savages and begin to do evil deeds which continue to get worse until they are rescued. In the time between their rescue, the society the boys create devolves and turns them into savages although this was not always the case. When the boys first arrived, Ralph, the fair haired boy, attempts to lead them in a civilized manner, but through the influence of Jack, many of the boys become evil. Jack mutants against Ralph saying, “ I'm not going to be a part of Ralph lot... I'm going off by myself. He can catch his own pigs. Anyone who wants to hunt when I do can come too,” (Golding 127) in saying this Jack has made most of the boys on the island betray their leader which proves both Jack and his followers to be evil. The society the boys created glorifies violence and death:“... the boys… found themselves eager to take part in this demented… society.” (Golding 152). Jack, the leader of the violent tribe, often takes his followers on gruesome hunts on which they graphicly disembowel the kill, and after the hunt, Jack leads a chant while the other boys stand

William Golding’s novel ‘The Lord of The Flies’ tells the story of a group of English boys isolated on a desert island, left to attempt to retain civilisation. In the novel, Golding shows one of the boys, Jack, to change significantly. At the beginning of the book, Jack’s character desires power and although he does not immediately get it, he retains the values of civilized behaviour. However, as the story proceeds, his character becomes more savage, leaving behind the values of society. Jack uses fear of the beast to control the other boys and he changes to become the book’s representation of savagery, violence and domination. He is first taken over with an obsession to hunt, which leads to a change in his physical appearance This change

To begin, Hobbes uses his most recognized work called the Leviathan to discuss several issues relating from the natural state of humans to more complex arguments about the equality of human beings. When observing Hobbes it best to start by examining his definition of appetites and aversions. For Hobbes appetites and aversions are outlined to be, “This endeavor, when it is

Golding ultimately connects Jack to Hobbes through Jack’s lack of mercy and justice. An unknown author composed a summary of Hobbes’ argument pertaining to this subject, and wrote “The state of nature… was founded upon a savage egoism which drove man to seek a maximum of pleasure without hindrance from a norm of justice or mercy toward other men. Every man was continually engaged in war against all other men” (Paragraph 9). Throughout the book, Jack fastidiously tries to not offer mercy or due justice to people. In one instance, Ralph pleads for mercy upon the twins, Sam and Eric. The narrator says, “’Grab them!’ No one moved. Jack shouted angrily. ‘I said

We will give Hobbes’ view of human nature as he describes it in Chapter 13 of Leviathan. We will then give an argument for placing a clarifying layer above the Hobbesian view in order to

In the Leviathan, Hobbes tries to prove why the Leviathan is necessary for preserving peace and preventing civil war.

According to the view Thomas Hobbes presents within the selected passaged in the Leviathan, we live in a narcissistic society where man’s condition is primarily driven by ego and where the achievement of personal goals is deemed paramount. Within the State of Nature that is, outside of civil society we have a right to all things ‘even to one another’s body’, and there would be no agreed authority to ensure the moral grounds of our decisions. Therefore since there are no restrictions and no shared authority; man is naturally un-guarded and prone to conflict and each individual is deemed a potential threat to our resources.