Violence In Lord Of The Flies

Their desire to please the beast leads them into golding’s theory of inner evil, shown by the gruesome slaughtering of the pigs and the “Lord of the Flies” itself, a gift to the supernatural creature. The Lord of the Flies is a direct translation to Beelzebub, which is name given to the devil in the bible. From this we can take Golding's perspective and motives not to express the relationship between the Pig’s head and the boys but human nature and evil. Soon the hunters lose sight of their school boy origins and their compassion, seeking only to hunt pigs and increase the tribe members or kill anyone standing in their way. This is a direct outcome from the beast who leads the boys into savagery and violence further developing their own inner beast.

As Simon wanders back to a beautiful meadow that he had traveled to before, he finds that it has changed. Instead of the peaceful meadow that Simon had discovered previously, the bloody head of a sow impaled by Jack and his follows taints the meadow. They had done this as an offering to the beast, hoping that the beast would be satisfied with the sow’s head and would give up hunting for the

The tragedies that unfold their civilization occur when they brutally beat Simon to death. After Jack and his hunters place the mother sow’s head in the forest as an offer to the beast they think exists, Simon encounters it and sees that it is covered in flies. Suddenly, the head started to talk to Simon as he feels like he is going to faint. It identifies itself to be the Lord of the Flies. It says, “You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?” (Golding 158). Simon then realizes that there is no physical beast, but a mental beast in each and every boy on the island. They all went from being joyful to a bunch of savages. Their

In the novel ‘Lord of the Flies’, Golding uses the theme of violence surfacing throughout the text. One reason for this was, Golding believed that every individual has the potential for evil and that the flawed human nature is seen in ‘mankind’s essential sickness’. His belief in this arrived through his time spent in war, so his aim was to challenge Ballantyne’s novel ‘Coral Island’, and in which Golding’s book the truth would be shown about his own thoughts of the darkness of mankind. As the theme of violence is in the heart of the novel, another reason of this is due to the quick breakdown of civilisation on the island. Through the breakdown, an ideal situation of

When Ralph asks him about his opinion on the beast, he says that he is unsure about it but if there is a beast, then it is within them. It is inside them which as a result is going to present itself when it feel its need to present itself as they are the dirtiest thing on the island than the beast. No one believes his prediction, for this reason, he goes to his secret hiding place full of butterflies, beautiful fragrant flowers, and candle buds where he can meditate to find out about the beast. As he reaches the place, he sees a pig’s head stuck on a stick with bees swarming around it. He continues to gaze it with such an immense interest that it seems like the pig’s head (Lord of the flies) starts talking to Simon. It says that it does not want him to be here and wants him to forget about their conversation and enjoy with his friends. If he does not do according to the Lord of the Flies, then he plans to have some with him through Jack, Maurice, Roger, Bill and Ralph whom he loves the most. “‘I’m [Lord of the Flies] warning you. I’m going to get waxy. D’you…See? Jack and Roger and Maurice and Robert and Bill and Piggy and Ralph. Do you. See?” Indeed, at last, it had fun with him through the other group of boys. Meanwhile, Simon reveals the real truth, the other boys have a pig hunt dance. As the boys see a creature moving through the bushes, they assume it as the beast

Jack and his tribe are very persistent with killing the beast and they get their wish when “Jack leapt on to the sand. ‘Do our dance! Come on! Dance!’… a circling movement developed… The circle became a horseshoe… The beast stumbled into the horseshoe ‘Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!’… Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill. ” (Golding 151-152). Jack and his tribe have begun their frenzied dance they see a figure stumbling out from the forest. However, instead of stopping to see what it was the boys immediately think it is the beast, so they let it into the circle and rip it apart with their teeth and “Claws”. One thing they do not know was that was Simon trying to notify them that the beast was a corpse near the top of the mountain. All Simon was trying to announce to everyone that no one has to be afraid as a way to help everyone on the island. Nevertheless, Jack helps the other boys tear Simon apart and does nothing else about it. Jack does not even care that he just killed a boy. In fact, he never talks about Simon for the rest of the

A lack of religion will lead to a lack of morality. Christlike figures often appear selfless, enlightened, and are taunted by sin. Simon from Lord of the Flies exhibits kindness to the young children by getting them fruit, while most of the older children disregard the children, and leave them to their own activities. He challenges the older boys ways of thinking, as he often prefers to meditate alone in the jungle. He even outright opposes the group mentality, as he says, “I don’t believe in the beast” (105). When Simon is confronted by the lord of the flies (a thinly-veiled reference to satan), it taunts him. The pig’s head symbolizes of the worst aspect of the group, and it tries to tempt and threaten Simon so that he becomes like the rest of the boys: unorganized, unfocused, and on their way to becoming savages. Eventually the other boys ritualistically murder Simon because they mistake him for the beast. Simon was the only one who knew that the beast was not real. He was enlightened and it isolated him from the rest of the boys. The parallels between Simon and Christ make Simon’s death more impactful, to emphasize the inevitability of downfall in groups who

In many parts of the world, humans live in a civilized society where law and order are organized and enforced. But within a lawless society, savagery surfaces in an ungoverned setting of bloodshed and harm. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Civility and Savagery are differentiated with Ralph and Jack, Ralph establishes a community compared to Jack who damage and divide civilization. Because of how Jack and Ralph use their democratic and dictatorial authority, through the examples of the declined civilization, the increase of savagery and the different ways of power by Ralph and Jack.

William S. Golding uses the symbol of the beast to convey how individuals can be corrupted because fear and hate make people selfish and savage. In chapter 9, Simon discovers that the so-called beast is actually a dead parachuter. He goes to Castle Rock to inform the rest of the boys, who are having a feast off the pig Jack killed. The author states, “The beast struggled forward and fell over the steep edge of the rock. At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt onto the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws” (153). From this quotation we can see that the boys, in their blind rage, confused Simon for the beast and killed him. Fear and hate have a close relationship because they feed off each other. Often times the hater fears, and the

group, did not allow Piggy to eat as he did not hunt with them. We

Simon tries to state the truth: there is a beast, but that "it's only us" (page #). When he makes this revelation, he is ridiculed. This is an uncanny parallel to the misunderstanding that Christ had to deal with throughout his life. Later in the story, the savage hunters are chasing a pig. Once they kill the pig, they put its head on a stick and Simon experiences an epiphany in which the Beast tells Simon: "Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!  You knew, didn't you? I'm part of all of you " (143).  As Simon rushes to the campfire to tell the boys of his discovery, he is hit in the side with a spear, his prophecy rejected and the word he wished to spread ignored.

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

Simon is intellectual and begins to hint at a possible truth about the “beast.” For example: “As if it wasn’t a good island.” (Golding 53) Simon observes that it is as if the island was bad, and not the good island from when they first arrived. Something was haunting the island, and it began as soon as they arrived. The author uses Simon to indicate the island is good, however, it is a different story when it comes to what arrived on the island. As the novel continues, the reader begins to find out what it was, that was haunting the boys. For example: “ What I mean is… maybe it’s only us.” (Golding 96) This quotation shows how Simon is the first character in the novel to see the “beast” not as an external force, but as a component of flawed human nature. This shows how Simon's words are central to Golding's point that primitive human evil exists. The author makes Simon have a seizure and create the “Lord of the Flies,” providing insight about the “beast.” For example: “Or else, said the Lord of the Flies, we shall do you. See?” (Golding 159) This quotation provides the reader with the idea that the “beast” links itself to the negligence of the rules that society has placed, and how savagery tries to overtake civilization and purity. It is like saying “The evils inside the other boys and I will get

He talks of a slithering object at night that tries to get him while he is asleep. There are many other accounts of a beast, even a pig’s head and a parachutist who did not make it. The Beast represents the fear that the boys have and everyone. The Beast is altered or changed depending on the boy who speaks of it because they are all scared and afraid of what might be out there or what might come to be. However, after Simon is killed and the parachutist is gone, they believe the beast is gone.

The boys project their irrational fears as a derivative of their immaturity, in an attempt to identify a realized external enemy. Literary critic Lawrence S. Friedman explains, “Too immature to account for the enemy within, the boys project their irrational fears onto the outside world. The first of these projections takes the shape of a snakelike “beastie,” the product of a small boy’s nightmare.” (233) The boys’ irrational fear of the unknown, one of a small boy’s nightmare, only serves to exemplify their immaturity in handling situations like this. It is a stepping stone to events to come, prophesied by Simon. In addition, the character of Simon alludes to the fact that there evil ‘beast’ can really be traced to their internalized innate evilness. Simon argues, “maybe there is a beast… What I mean is… maybe it’s only us.” (Golding 89) While all of the boys attempt to explain the phenomena of the ‘beast,’ Simon is the one who realizes that the boys themselves are the evil ‘beast’ they perceive. There is no external force, the ‘beast’ only serves to be a placeholder for the boys’ true primal nature. However, it is Simon’s death, at the hand of the boys themselves, that only serves to prove that evil truly exists in all of these boys. Friedman suggests, “The ritual murder of Simon is as ironic as it is inevitable. Ironically, he is killed as the beast before he can explain that the beast does not exist. His horrid death refutes is aborted revelation: the beast exists, all right, not where we thought to find it, but within ourselves.” (236) His death is truly the tipping point, a point of no return for the boys. After his killing, Simon’s philosophy of inner evil is realized. It is clear that his own philosophy is what ultimately leads to Simon’s death, as unfortunate as it may be. It is reflected of the group’s fear of the unknown, and their