Scrutiny Lord Of The Flies Character Analysis Essay

In William Golding’s Lord Of The Flies while the time of a World War, a plane crashed on an uncharted island leaving young boys stranded with no authority. The boys get so caught up in striving for survival that their savage side overtakes them. William Golding proves that men are essentially evil through the inability of the boys to maintain an authority figure that would have prevented the creeping in of savagery because of the loss of societal rules.

There are multiple instances within the novel where dispositional factors lead to the act of evil. Roger is a bad apple, described as a cruel character who bullies littluns for his own personal amusement. It is believed that in the beginning of the book he was less savage as he still had a civilized part of him. However, as the story developed his evil character begins to show in full fruition when he kills Piggy. “Roger with a sense of delirious abandonment leaned all his weight on the lever… Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across the square, red rock in the sea.” (Golding 201) In this quote, the death of Piggy is fully described. Not only does he die, but we also find out that Roger is responsible for Piggy’s cold-blooded assassination. This quote reveals that he is a bad apple because it exhibits his violent savage behavior and shows that these

Lord of the Flies is a novel written in 1954 by William Golding. A plane carrying a group of British citizens trying to escape the nuclear war gets shot down and lands on a deserted tropical island. The only survivors are children ranging from the age of six to twelve-year-olds. The younger children are nick named “littluns” and the older children are nick named “biguns”. At first, they celebrate their freedom from the war but then they begin to realize there aren't any adults to supervise them, they don't have food, they don't have shelter, and they are stranded on a deserted tropical island. One of the characters Piggy is classified as smart but is fat chubby and has asthma so he isn't capable of much things. “ “My auntie told me not to

After being on the island for a long time, the boys start to become uncivilized too. After Roger already becomes a criminal by aiding in the murder of a boy, Simon, he murders Piggy on his own. Roger understood that he was committing murder, so he should be fully responsible for his actions. What Roger did is unacceptable, he murdered someone by choice. Because even though “We are born with evil in us...

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

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.

The other boys like Jack for instance, had no tolerance for this perceived weakness. Moreover, Jack was an absolutely leader terrible because a lot of dreadful things occurred under his reign. - As his power and influence increased, so did the general atmosphere of cruelty. (killing the sow, etc.) Roger, a sadistic individual, was able to live out his sick and twisted fantasies under Jack’s regime.

In the article, it expresses that "Adolescents who share antisocial tendencies...are more likely to search for social identity in gangs". In the 'Lord of the Flies' case, there were groups that could be considered tribes, like Ralph's group, but more recently Jack's own. In chapter one, Roger was described as "...a slight, furtive boy whom no one knew, who kept to himself with an inner intensity of avoidance and secrecy". He was like this while Ralph still had control as chief, however throughout the book we see a development in character within him. In chapter eleven, we see that Jack had given him the job of keeping watch. After encountering Ralph, Piggy, Sam, and Eric, we notice that savagery has gotten the best of him when he decides to commit a crime without a care in the world. The quote "High over head, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever...the rock struck Piggy...Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across the square red rock in the sea" shows Roger's cruel and true nature shortly after joining Jack's tribe. As the article says, he looked for his own identity in Jack's tribe, and found it to be very violent and harmful to those around

He “led the way straight through the castles, kicking them over, burying the flowers, scattering the chosen stones,” only to remain, “watching the littluns.” Maurice, however, “still felt the unease of wrongdoing.” Jack’s only fault was yearning for power, which corrupts those who wield it. Roger is corrupted and malevolent without ever thirsting for this power, and is therefore more evil than Jack. Roger keeps to himself, much like Simon, and remains consistently evil throughout the novel. Near the beginning, he “picked up a stone, aimed, and threw it at Henry-threw it to miss,” held back by “the taboo of the old life.” Later, he did not miss and “with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever,” releasing a huge boulder and killing Piggy. Under the weight of the boulder, “the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.” The main symbol for the democracy, equality and justice was indirectly destroyed by Roger. To him, “Ralph was a shock of hair and Piggy a bag of fat,” thus dehumanizing and objectifying them. When Sam and Eric were cornered by Jack’s group of savages, Roger demonstrates his enjoyment for hurting others by “[advancing] upon them as one wielding a nameless authority.” It was not for the sake of supremacy or control, but for unbridled sadistic pleasure. When Ralph finds Sam and Eric, they say that Roger is “a terror”. He also points out that Jack is a terror, but the twins respond with “only

In Lord of the Flies, British schoolchildren are stranded on an isolated tropical island near the Pacific from a plane collision and try to stay with the society norms, but the boys-one-by-one; change to savage survivalism of ancient hunters; they lose their sanity and strive for power like Jack. However, Roger is the one that should be voted off the island. Since of his harmful nature as a sociopath, he cannot be trusted since he killed Piggy, and he does not hurt the boys for power; Roger hurts them for his satisfaction. He is the true evil of the island. Roger shows signs of a sociopath, he slowly goes to the dark side, but he really crosses the line of civilization.

He does everything “with a sense of delirious abandonment” that is forced upon him and follows him through his entire stay on the island, a result of the environment and the fact that there is no adult supervision (Golding 180). Adults keep kids in line and care for them. The boys do not have that sense of ordinance and safekeeping because it is all lost. All tie to society, gone. Each and every one of them does something they would not do at home, including Roger, because of the devilish side of people.

After Roger and Maurice stomp through the littluns sand castles Roger followed Henry toward the beach. Roger began to throw rocks at Henry but made sure not to hit him for henry was protected by “parents and school and policemen and the law”(62). Henry was protected by this previous notion of civilization but now it was a “civilization that knew nothing of [Roger] and was in ruins”. As this freedom dawns on Roger he will begin to act more towards his vile desires. Roger acts on his desire to cause pain when he runs around “prodding with his spear whenever pig flesh appeared”(135).

The existence of savagery inhabits every individual, even if its presence is not known or revealed immediately, eventually it will emerge. Although not well known in the beginning, Roger represents the sadist, the individual who enjoys hurting others, in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a novel that examines the violence and savagery that is present in every individual when set in a different environment. Gradually, Roger finds his affinity for violence and savagery due to the disintegration of order and rules. The progression of savagery in Roger is particularly subtle and becomes more evident throughout the book as he transforms from a British choir boy into a savage murderer over a short period of time. Roger is described as a “slight”

It is believed children learn from others and become accustomed to their way of living. According to Dr. Halbertal,”When we say that children are not fully legally responsible, one thing we mean by that is that they mirror the social life around them” (Qtd. in Sachs). However, all individuals are all born with inner darkness and if given the opportunity to be used, one would take advantage of the opportunity. Once Roger realized there were no adults to stop his evil actions, he lost control of his actions and became

The ease with which humanity is corrupted is evident in the scene “High overhead, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever” (180-181) where Roger kills Piggy, because Roger, as the id, kills Piggy and casts away the last shred of the superego remaining on the island. Roger is also the character that delights in killing the pig the most as shown when Roger is described as driving the spear into the pig. “According to Freud, the id (located in the unconscious mind) works always to gratify its own impulses. These impulses, often sexual, seek to provide pleasure without regard to the cost” (“Lord of the Flies”). This description refers to Roger and represents the brutality of the id. The clearest example of how Roger has totally succumbed to the darkness inside him is his intent to murder Ralph and display his head on a stick “Roger sharpened a stick at both ends” (190) like the Lord of the Flies.