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Lord Of The Flies Moral

Decent Essays

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. In the novel, Golding is trying to assert the point that when humans are presented with no law they let go of the impulses that have been held back by authority figures. At the beginning of the novel Roger encounters a young boy playing near the water and he “...gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was a space round Henry...into which he dare not throw” (Golding 67). It can be inferred from this line, that Roger had not thrown the stones directly at Henry because he was accustomed by the old authority figures back at home. His sadistic impulses were kept under control. Later in the novel, Roger has no trouble killing another boy, Piggy, with an enormous boulder (Golding 209). It can be inferred that Roger’s impulses have now been …show more content…

Throughout the novel, the main antagonist, Jack Merridew slowly drifts more and more towards savagery as he gets closer and closer to total power. As Jack has fully grasped total power he begins his manhunt for Ralph and fully releases his violent and uncivilized impulses. At this point in the story, the author ceases to call Jack by his real name and instead referring to him as “chief” (Golding 211). This symbolizes that Jack has lost all senses of civilization and has become a totally new entity within itself. Jack is not the only one who has lost their sense of enlightenment as most of the boys who had originally crashed on the island have turned to savagery, further proving Golding’s point. Golding’s profound statement has been proven on many levels in this

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