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Lord Of The Flies Man Vs Environment

Decent Essays

Some have wondered if the beast inside human beings was put there by their environment, or if they all were born with it. Humans’ behavior all stems from their environment or the situation that they are in at the time. In the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a plane full of boys crashes on a deserted island with no adults to help them get by. Towards the end of the book the boys start to get wild like savages and start killing one another. The reason the boys started to act this way was because, of the environment and situation that they were forced to live in.
In the very beginning of the book, the charter Jack states “We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re english, and the english are best at …show more content…

It all started with a man by the name of Thomas Hobbes. He believed in many things about human beings and how they react to their environment. One of his beliefs was, that people will not get along unless their is a higher power making them.(“Hobbes, The leviathan”) His words in “The Leviathan” states: “Again men have no pleasure in keeping company where there is no power able to overawe them all”.(“Hobbes”) This was shown an awful lot in William Golding’s book. The boys on the island did not get along or stay civilized for very long.This was because there was no one around of higher power to make them. Therefore their little civilization did not stay strong for very long. Another thing that Hobbes said, was if humans are of equal power, and want the same thing, we will become enemies.(“Hobbes, The leviathan”) Here is his words: “and therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which they both can not enjoy, they become enemies: and in the way to their end, endeavour to destroy or subdue one another.” (“Hobbes, the leviathan”)The boys on the island were all around the same age of six through twelve. This made them feel as if they were all equal in power. Also in the beginning of the book we see Jack and Ralph both wanted to be “chief” since they were the oldest.(“Golding”) They become enemies because in their minds they were equal in power because they were …show more content…

That is wrong because, later in the years; after Thomas hobbes days, another man by the name of John Locke wrote a book called The second Treatise of Civil Government. In it he explains how Men are born to know reason and can defend himself.(“Locke, the second treatsie of the civil government”)His words were “The freedom then of man, and liberty of acting according to his own will, is grounded on his having reason, which is able to instruct him in that law he is govern himself by, and make him know how far he is left to the freedom of his own will.”(“Locke, the second treatsie of the civil government”) Therefore when people say that the actions that the boys made at the end of the book was because every man is born with evil is wrong, because every man is born to know reason and the consequences for wrong doings. The boys had no consequences so they did what they wanted even if it was against their personal moral beliefs

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