The Evil Nature Of Mankind In Lord Of The Flies

The Defects in Society are the Defects of Human Nature in Lord of the Flies

It is a very arguable subject on whether or not people are born with good intentions, and therefore taught by others the ‘evil’ side of their personality. Whether it is the absence of ethical conduct in human nature, or just the way one perceives a situation, evil seems to be prominent in our everyday lives. Humans seem to have a moral code that follows them with every decision they make, yet despite the laws of morality and society, people of this world still seem to behave inhumanely because of the act of self-preservation, human interest, and who exactly the authority figure is at the time.

Despite the obvious age gap of the main characters in both novels, authors Golding and Remarque alike manipulate the text into conveying the theme of the loss of humanity that derives from violence. In Lord of the Flies, it is apparent early on that primal instincts will emerge from the innocence of the boys, such as, "He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarl," (Golding Chapter 4). The split second snarl that escapes is a crystal-clear indicator for the future event depicting the death of a boy, Simon. "Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!" (Golding Chapter 9). Albeit the dancing boys do not know it is a fellow child and not a savage beast, they do not halt the actions taken to harm Simon, which ultimately leads to his death.

    Despite the progression of civilization and society's attempts to suppress man's darker side, moral depravity proves both indestructible and inescapable; contrary to culturally embraced views of humanistic tendencies towards goodness, each individual is susceptible to his base, innate instincts. In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, seemingly innocent schoolboys evolve into bloodthirsty savages as the latent evil within them emerges. Their regression into savagery is ironically paralleled by an intensifying fear of evil, and it culminates in several brutal slays as well as a frenzied manhunt. The graphic consequence of the boys' unrestrained barbarity, emphasized by the

Imagine if one was asked to compile a list of every flaw of human nature that was demonstrated by the boys in the novel Lord of the Flies. Among the words used would probably be naive, uncivilized, and unfocused. While these words certainly do describe the boys and their poorly constructed society, they also hold the same meaning and truth when they are applied to our own people in our own society. People in both our society and the one described in the novel exhibit a profuse amount of faults and flaws, but this extensive list of faults can be narrowed down to the three most common ones. The three most prominent flaws of human nature are being selfish, desiring power, and not following through with plans.

Do you think that humans are good or bad? Throughout history, it can be seen that humans have not always treated others kindly. Even though some humans act kind, there are still many ways humans are bad. I believe that humans are bad because of how they treat each other in the book and how people have treated each other throughout history.

In the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses biblical allusions to demonstrate that people have an innate evil that is kept in check only by the morals presented in society, and will be drawn out eventually.

“All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the

People have questioned whether humans are naturally good but corrupted by society or humans are naturally evil and the surrounding people keep them in line. Lord of the Flies is a book that showcases humans are naturally evil. Little boys have been stuck on an island and while trying to survive their natural ways of evil start to show. In “Lord of the Flies” William Golding showcases throughout the book that humans are naturally evil, this allegation is supported by symbolism, plot development, character development, and historical evidence.

As humans, are we fundamentally good or evil? If left alone on a desert island without any outside influences, would we tend toward cruelty or would we maintain the rules and morals that structure our modern day society? According to traditional christian belief, people are born with a sinful or evil nature. More popular beliefs however view humans as inherently good, only corrupted by the influence of their environment. William Golding addresses this very theme in Lord Of The Flies. Through character development and symbolism, Golding implies that we are born intrinsically evil and without the boundaries that society dictates, our evil natures will overtake us and lead to our destruction.

The ironic novel The Lord of the Flies by William Golding suggests that humankind has an internal evil, commonly known as a beast that results in humankind inevitably turning to savagery with the loss of civilization, and using fear to persuade people to do what they want for their own desire.

As history tells us that people have been evil, and society blame those people, like Hitler or Stalin, for what they did. But what if the reason they did those horrible things is because they could not hold back this evil that is in all of us. Mankind could be able to do what they did. Yet some of us know how to hold this evil back, humans are strong enough to not let it take control of us. William Golding has implied that society is inherently evil in his book Lord of the Flies; this idea of an inherently evil human nature has also been examined in the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Experiment.

When mans inner evilness takes over, mankind may be doomed. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, he states that man is not doomed, but severely threatened. Throughout Golding’s novel, the islands society goes from order, to the beastie, to chaos. Fear alters the boys and they must rely on one other to survive and return back to civilization. The defects of human nature corrupt the defect of society.

Throughout the Lord of the Flies novel the idea of pure evilness is portrayed through many characters. Jack a young British choir boy, who is stranded on the island along with his friends tends to show an intense savageness like none other. He cherishes the idea to of power and command over anyone on the island. The idea of power was first brought to him when the group of stranded boys suggest that they elect a leader, this responsibility falling between one of two boys, Ralph or Jack. When the boys elect Ralph as their leader, a chain of emotion and events are set in motion to be carried out by Jack.

The debate over human nature has raged for centuries. Philosophers and psychologists have offered myriad explanations for a question that should be simple: are people good or evil? There has been conclusive evidence for both sides, and ultimately, the resolution lies in each individual person’s view of humanity. For William Golding, the outlook was not a good one. In his allegorical novel, Lord of The Flies (hereafter abbreviated LOTF), Golding places a group of adolescent boys on an island, completely isolated from civilization. Left to their own devices, the kids attempt to form their own society, until the boys’ own savage instincts cause it to collapse. The first of the boys to succumb to this savagery is an English choir boy named Jack Merridew. Golding uses Jack to show that humans are both savage and inherently evil, but society can condition them to become good.