How Does Golding Present The Evil In Lord Of The Flies

When William Golding published the renown novel Lord of the Flies in 1954 readers were aghast at the critical standpoint Golding took on human nature. Golding undermined human nature into what readers viewed as bare savagery. Golding developed characters that started to view violence as an everyday thing. Violence is evident when the gang of boys yelled “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in.” This dehumanizing line exemplifies the inborn evil in the boys. Golding’s message was to place emphasis on the evil in human nature and he clearly conveyed that with Jack and his tribe; the complete opposite of Ralph’s tribe.

Jack in particular showed readers that hope was lost on the island. Jack represented war, violence, death, hate. Part of the story clearly portrays Jack, “The ground was hardened by an accustomed tread and as Jack rose to his full height he heard something moving on it. He swung back his right arm and hurled the spear with all his strength.” Jack is depicted as a spasmodic boy who’s first attempt in any situation is violence rather than peace. On the other hand, Golding included the christ-like character named Simon. Golding included Piggy, who had much

Golding had no means to portray man as good or evil, rather as instinctively one way or the other. The evil in Lord of the Flies comes from violence which is derived from the desire to murder. From a religious standpoint, the desire to kill comes from the actual Lord of the Flies who represents Satan himself with the power to posses Simon. The following quote shows how Jack ignored all rules of the government they had created earlier in the book: “You're breaking the rules!” shouted Ralph “Who cares?” When Jack completely ignores the rules Ralph had made, Golding conveys to readers that the actions one does represent who they are and because of Jack’s urge to ignore all rules, this represented that Jack had lost all sense of