Savagery In Lord Of The Flies

The human mind is made of up two instincts that constantly have conflict: the instinct to live by society’s rules and the instinct to live by your own rules. Our civilized will has been to live morally by law and order, and our savage will has been to act out for our own selfish needs. We each choose to live by one or the other depending on how we feel is the correct way to live. In this allegorical novel, William Golding represents the transformation from civilization to savagery in the conflict between two of the main characters: Ralph who represents law and order and Jack who represents savagery and violence. Lord of the Flies has remained a very controversial novel to this day with its startling, brutal, and truthful picture of the

Although not mentioned much at the start of the novel, by the end, Roger becomes Jack’s right-hand man. The following quote best captures Roger’s merciless savagery, Golding writes, “‘High overhead, Roger with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever… The rock struck Piggy a gleaning blow from chin to knee… the body of Piggy was gone.”’(Golding 181). Roger, in this scene, murders Piggy in cold blood. Roger clearly knows it is wrong to kill; but, with “abandonment” pushed the rock. Roger, who was first seen throwing stones at Henry, throws the rocks in the area around Henry. This demonstrates that he still has traces of civilization left and that the thought of rules exist. Roger; although, slowly afterwards loses most of his civilization. Once again seen with Jack after they kill the mother pig, Roger, tortures the pig with no remorse. During this sick scene, Roger stabs the pig in whatever place he can find. After all of this, the first thing Roger asks is how are we going to cook it. Finally, when Roger kills Piggy he reaches his final transformation into savagery; therefore, without parental supervision, Roger’s extremely corrupt human nature emerges. Along with Roger’s exhibition of corruptness, Ralph also displays the true human

The thing is, the situation the boys are in is a life or death situation and it seems that only Ralph and Piggy are the ones that realize this. When jack left the group the rest of his understanding of survival where all lost except for hunting . Throughout, the story Jack becomes more and more power hungry, but now that he has gone wicked all he can think about is revenge toward his rival leader Ralph. “He’s going to beat Wilfred.” “What for?” Robert shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t know. He didn’t say. He got angry and made us tie Wilfred up. He’s been”—he giggled excitedly—“he’s been tied for hours, waiting—”(Golding, 159). From killing other striving animals, physically hurting piggy, and to tieing up wilfred to beat him. Jack is wicked in every way shape or form. Jack took advantage of his new position as leader on his group and went bloodthirsty. Then the monstrous red thing bounded across the neck and he flung himself flat while the tribe shrieked. The rock struck piggy a glancing blow from the chin the the knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, traveled through the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went (jack signals the boys to roll the boulder to go pummel the boys and ends up killing piggy) (Golding, 181).

The struggle between humanity and savagery portrayed through the events of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies demonstrates how simple it is for one to succumb to the mannerisms of depravity. This is impossible with the implementation of structure and order, as such concepts provide boundaries and keep man sane and behaved. Once the boys arrive on the island, isolated and expelled from society, they look to a shell to relieve them of this hardship, and to institute a form of government that will keep them from acting out. Despite the trust they put in the shell, it fails to hold them from corruption, only adding to the growing tension between all of the boys inhabiting the mysterious island. Through the escalating tension surrounding the

Men, without rules, can be led towards destruction. Lord of the Flies depicts at first a group of boys trying to maintain order, and a later descent into savagery. One of the most direct, apparent examples of this is through Roger. Through the contrast of the self-restraint Roger has at the beginning of the novel and the murder he absentmindedly commits at the end, Golding illustrates how man’s desire for savagery is restrained only by the enforced civilization of society.

One of the most intricate themes in the novel is the survival instincts of human nature. The savagery that will soon overtake the children is first seen in Roger as he throws rocks towards Henry. “Roger stooped, picked up a stone, aimed and threw it at Henry-threw it to miss... Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw... Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. Roger was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins.” (Golding 62) As Roger throws these stones, the foundation of his character is built. He turns out to be one of the most ruthless boys who will hurt or kill

This begins to explain one of the main themes throughout the novel Lord of the Flies. For one to be uncivilized is to be barbaric and inhuman, without having a sense of culture and social development. When innocence or civilization is lost, levels of economic, social, technological, political, and cultural evolution differentiates from that of the normal, because ideas, values, institutions, and achievements of a particular society is changed. The boys in Lord of the Flies find themselves in a situation where their only option was to learn to grow up and learn to do it fast on their own. They have to learn how to survive and fend for themselves without the presence of any adult figures, and create a prosperous society for their own. They

The boys feel not only threatened, but also confronted with panic and loss. With no adult supervision on the island, the boys do not follow rules and

At the beginning of the novel, the author introduces Ralph as an innocent boy far from adulthood and described as a "fair boy." The author used this to give the reader a feeling of Ralph's position on the scale of maturation. Ralph's innocence is further suggested when he says his daddy is "a commander in the Navy and

Determination has played a motivating role for characters in many novels. One such example can be found in William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies. Ralph shows his determination to get himself and the other boys off of the island. Ralph, the authority figure and protagonist, is a determined individual because he persistently assured the boys that they would get off of the island. Throughout Ralph’s efforts to get the boys rescued, he experienced a number of hardships and uprisings.

Civilization was created to contain social structure. However, in utmost circumstances, it is possible for instinct to triumph over civility. Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is a plane evacuating a group of British schoolboys that crashes over a tropical deserted island. Once they crash on the island, they pick Ralph, the protagonist of the novel, to be their leader, and Ralph chooses Jack, the antagonist of the novel, to be the leader of the hunters, establishing somewhat of a civilization. Then when Jack comes upon a mother boar and kills it, that’s when their makeshift civilization slowly diminishes and the boys become savages. In addition, loss of social structure within a society can lead to the absolute destruction of the civilization. The author of Lord of the Flies, William Golding, uses man vs man and man vs nature conflicts to develop the theme of loss of social structure leads to savagery. Golding reveals this theme by exploring the conflicts of

Ralph was the protagonist in this novel. The book starts out with him, and therefore the readers know him best. Ralph stayed the sanest out of the group of boys, but he did lose it in the end of the book when Jack and the hunters are hunting him. Ralph was the one who tried to keep all the boys in check, and was the first to realize that they need to have set rules in order to survive, and get off the island. ”If I blow the conch and they don't come back; then we've had it. We

In William Golding's Lord of the Flies the central and recurring theme, civilization vs savagery, is very evident and obvious. Throughout the novel, Golding associates civilization with good, while associating savagery with dark and evil. Due to the intense and driving force of the novel, civilization and savagery clash against each other as the novel progresses. Golding also lets the two main characters represent this theme. Ralph, the protagonist, represents leadership and has a civil wellbeing, while Jack, the antagonist, stands for the desire of power and savagery. “We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything” (Golding 42). Jack agrees with Ralph in this statement about how the boys must obey and follow the rules given, however, as the novel progresses, Jack starts to become a savage and butts heads with Ralph. Nonetheless, the novel moves forward and the boys still retain their civil sides. In Chapter 3 the main conflict intervenes and the first verbal conflict takes place. As Jack and Ralph argue it is apparent on which side each of the boys take and the division of the boys starts to take action. Ralph advocates to build huts, while the bloodthirsty Jack, demands that the boys hunt for food. But because Jack and Ralph are children they are unable to successfully express their feelings and ideas during the debate. Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 present a new challenge that the

In conclusion, the boys are fully consumed by primitive behavior such as killing and brawls for power that they demolish all signs of civilization and human behavior. The killing of animals for food is tolerable unless it means discord and fighting between people. The killing of people is where the line between barbaric behavior and educated behavior is set. Would losing all your innocence and yourself be worth it for some power and the freedom to hunt a pointless

running away from the other boys or the savages and falls onto the beach only to get up and see a naval officer there. He was sure he was about to be corned and killed but luckily the forest fire that was used to flush Ralph out caught the ship’s attention. He talks to the man and then comes back to being a twelve-year-old boy and cries for his dead friend, the people they became, and