The Evil In Lord Of The Flies By William Golding

A recurring theme among leaders in many societies today is that “absolute power corrupts absolutely” (John Acton, a 1700’s English Catholic historian, politician, and writer). In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, this idea of leadership, power, and corruption is put in the spotlight. Jack, one of the boys on the island, forces his way into the leadership position without actually earning it. It is clear that Jack has become corrupt as he turns into a person who is intimidating, egotistical, and selfish. Ralph, on the other hand, is a quality leader under most conditions as he appeals to the boys’ sophisticated side and has a

“All human beings are commingled out of good & evil” was a quote once said by notable Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. This quotation discusses and supports William Golding’s, the author of Lord of the Flies, belief that all humans have a distinct character flaw that, when left unchecked by morals and laws of society, will eventually corrupt the individual. In Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, it’s shown how due to their environment and lack of supervision, the young boys slowly progress and evolve into barbaric, bloodthirsty individuals.

Throughout the novel Lord Of The Flies, the boys on the island are continuously faced with numerous fears. Subsequently there is nothing on the island which they fear more than the beast. The beast is not a tangible object that can be killed or destroyed by conventional means, but an idea symbolizing the primal savage instincts within all people. Its Golding’s intention to illustrate the innate evil inside man through his view of human nature, the actions of the Jack and his tribe, and the relationship between the beast and the school boys.

The Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel about a group of boys stranded on an island with no adults and no rules. Golding believes that humans all have a capability to do wrong, and through The Lord of the flies portrays how certain situations make a human’s capacity for evil more prominent. Golding shows how the boys’ civilization deteriorates from being good British kids to murderous savage people. The novel can easily be connected to the Stanford Prison Experiment, and how what happened to the boys on the island can happen outside the realm of fiction. Golding shows the reader what the Lord of the Flies is in the book and how the namesake of the book is found in all of us.

Although humankind attempts its best at preventing evil actions, eventually evil rises above all else. While humans are living ordinary lives and living in ignorance, evil is always scheming and waiting to slide up behind the turned backs of society as depicted in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. One could argue that this is not the case and that good deeds always overshadow evil and that evil is just an occasional blip. However, what one’s opinion of society does not outshine the cold hard facts of humankind’s natural tendencies; specifically, how things are never as they seem, how easily humans can betray their emotions and how humans choose to ignore difficult situations in the search for an easy

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses the symbols of good and evil through the Lord of the Flies and Simon. In order to convey the underlying message, that the fear of the unknown brings out the evil in humans. William Golding's fictional piece, evil is symbolized through the lord of the flies because he represents the loss of civilization and innocence. This quote shows that the character Lord of the Flies gets into the boy's thoughts, “There isn’t anyone to help you, only me. and I’m the beast fancy to think you can hunt and kill. You knew, didn’t you? I'm part of you. Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why these things are the way they are?” (Golding chapter 8). This quote proves, that the Lord of the Flies are trying to get into the boy’s heads and they are slowly becoming less civilized.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. After having created everything on Earth, He made man. “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’”(NIV Genesis 2:15). Thus, He made Eve from the rib of Adam. God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge but the evil serpent, who was craftier than them, tricked Eve into eating the fruit. Eve later convinced Adam after having argued with him and he gave in. Both were punished by God for having gone against His word and would suffer the consequences of it. “So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After He drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden a cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:23-24).

Fierce, violent, uncontrolled all define one word, that word would be savage. In William Golding’s novel Lord of the flies the boys that have been trapped on an island due to a plane crash began to turn savage, driving them to do things they would have never done back home in England. William Golding wants to show to the readers how savagery had a massive escalation, how the children have been impacted by savagery and the emotions of the children throughout this book.

All humans are or have the capacity to be evil. No matter if they choose to act on these sinister urges or not, the desire to violently cause destruction is always within a person. In recent months, countless acts of violence, acts of pure evil have occurred not only in America, but around the world as well. These tragedies verify the truth: humans are inherently evil. No matter what is done, nothing will ever truly prevent the existence of evil among humans. Human beings are savages by nature, and are motivated by the environment around them, society’s demanding expectations, and their natural primitive desire for evil.

It’s WWII times and you’re on a plane when the plane suddenly crashes onto a remote island. You and everyone one else that had survived the crash are not even adults, barely even teenagers at the matter. The only way to stay alive is to not give into the temptation of evil that is growing with you and the other boys’ hearts. Welcome to the life of Ralph on Conch Island from Lord of The Flies by William Golding. He has to try and stay alive while dealing with a not so physically adapt ally and a pack of monsters society would call little boys. The only way to control them is with a conch until the boys, hopefully, get saved unless the monster destroys them all. That monster, of course, is the evil within everyone’s hearts.

There are two instincts that are in a constant struggle between each other in the human mind: the instinct to live by the rules of society and the instincts of savagery, the will to act on the person's own selfish needs. As shown in Lord of the Flies by William Golding, as he transforms British boys from civil to savages. The savagery is mostly represented by Jack to start of him wanting to become the leader, progressing to creating a mask to hide and pursue the hunt, to finally being engulfed by the darkness and becoming a true savage. The beginning of the novel Golding gives the reader hints on how he wants them to interpret the boy by his appearance.

Knowing William Golding took part of World War II, we as readers can understand why Golding wrote Lord of the Flies and other survival-fiction novels. When the story was released in 1954, Golding described his book as "an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature." It is unmistakably obvious to anyone who reads this book that Golding is trying to exaggerate the good and evil in the boys on the island. Throughout the book, we learn that people, including children, are not pure goodness. Deep inside there is an evil constantly trying to rise to the surface of our minds. Golding proves that eventually the evil within us will destroy us. Golding saw in World War II what

Many years ago, Charles Darwin introduced a theory that we humans are a species which evolved from animals that have inhabited the Earth for many years, and he believed that we were civilized, intelligent, and logical life forms for these very reasons. In the novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding there is a prominent theme of good versus evil which reveals that maybe humans are not the civilized human beings that they were said to be. William Golding carefully netted this theme with his utilization of literary device such as his symbolism. Golding uses this simple story of English boys stranded on an inhabited island to illustrate how destructive humans can be when implanted in a impoverished environment where they

The theme of The Lord of the Flies is that evil is with in all but there are different triggers for everyone to let it out. In the text it states “All around him the long scar smashed into the jungle with a bath of heat”(Golding 7). “ The undergrowth at the side of the scar was shaken”(7) . “ In the middle of the scar he stood on his head”(8).Using the word scar repeatedly show that it is important. It shows that the island must have been pure befor the boys got there

One of the most crucial components of a storyline is the theme. It is the central message of the story. In the novel Lord of The Flies by William Golding, the message is that even the purest of hearts contain an innate animalistic behaviour. As suggested in the story, savagery is inherent in all beings because true evil lies within one’s genetics, personality, and their surroundings.