Savagery In Lord Of The Flies Argumentative Essay

The savage in man is never quite eradicated. -Henry David Thoreau. Can the lack of civilization bring out the inner savagery in people? In the novel The Lord of the Flies by the late William Golding, a group of boys are forced to flee their homes in England due to incoming axis bombers. They board a plane, but in the middle of their flight they were shot down and crash land on a deserted island. Only a fraction of the boys survived the crash and were strung out along the island.Two of the older boys, Ralph and Piggy, find each other and began searching for others. During their walk, Piggy spotted a conch shell and Ralph blew it, alerting all of the boys on their position and they flocked over. They held a meeting with the group and after discussing

Slowly the boys in the hunters tribe became more and more like animals. They began stealing and attacking the other tribe. After a raid on Ralph’s camp Jack yelled, “Tonight we’re having a feast. We’ve killed a pig and we’ve got meat. You can come and eat with us if you like.”, and all of the boys accepted the offer. On the night of the feast, one boy, Simon, was in the forest and burst out amidst a ritualistic dance the hunters we’re doing. He was attacked with their spears as soon as he rushed out. Simon was brutally murdered and his body was washed out to sea. The raids didn’t stop and eventually the hunters stole one of the boy”s, Piggy, glasses. He couldn’t see at all without them, so Ralph, Piggy, and SamnEric marched to the Hunters camp with spears and demanded his “specs” back. The hunters saw this as a threat and one of them pushed a boulder off a cliff onto Piggy, killing him instantly and pushing him out to sea. It was a gruesome scene that sparked another physical fight between Ralph and Jack. It led to Ralph being forced to run away and SamnEric being captured. These examples show that the boys that landed on the island weren’t the same as the savages that left. But was this to be