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Lord Of The Flies Human Nature Character Analysis

Decent Essays

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. In Lord of the Flies, Jack represents an oppressive government and savagery. Jacks oppressive-like government is backed by violence and brutality, the characteristics in which Roger demonstrates. ““He is going to beat Wilfred…” “But didn’t the chief (Jack) say why?” Roger assimilated the possibilities of irresponsible authority” (pg160). In other words Jack, or chief, is abusing his power and is going to beat Wilfred for an unknown and unsaid reason. From this, we can infer that Jack is very oppressive. In summary, the boys’ reasoning behind punishment begins to not matter and since wrong behavior isn’t corrected, the boys in Jacks “tribe” are becoming savage and almost inhuman as time goes by. Throughout Golding’s novel, Ralph represents a democratic government, where everyone has a voice, as well as a just Civilization. During the reading you will see that Ralph is backed by Truth, human goodness, logic, and scientific intellect, all characteristic in which Piggy and Simon represent. ““Speak up” the small boy held put his hands for the conch… “He wants to know what you’re going to do about the snake thing…the Beastie” (pg35) ““Who thinks there may be ghosts?...” then Ralph peered into the gloom and made out the hands.. “ I see…” (pg. 920). Basically, Ralph is saying and shows that everyone has a voice, biggun or littlun, and he will take all opinions into account later on. From this, we can infer that Ralph I still learning, but is a caring and decent chief. Ralphs democratic ways of running things is eventually what causes or allows the boys to be rescued, but before they were rescued Ralph and anyone who supported his democratic ways

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