Civilization can be destroyed as easily as it is created. Without the walls of society, humans are capable of committing actions that they would have never thought possible. Lord of the Flies focuses on a group of boys who are alone on an island without authority. The novel reveals what can become of humanity without the presence of authority. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the protagonist Ralph symbolizes leadership, civilization, as well as the loss of innocence. Ralph is the closest resemblance to authority that the boys have on the island. His appearance plays an important role in him signifying authority, “You could see now that he might make a boxer, as far as width and heaviness of shoulders went, but there was a mildness about his mouth and eyes that proclaimed no evil” (Golding, 10). His appearance changes throughout the novel as well as his character. Ralph portrays the most significant character because the majority of the novel revolves around him. He becomes the leader of the group of boys in the beginning of the novel, until he starts to struggle for power with the antagonist, Jack. Ralph experiences a journey that causes him to lose his innocence and he discovers many things about humanity. Ralph’s symbolism of leadership, civilization, and the loss of innocence reveals what can become of society. Evil is within all of humanity, humanity can transition from civilization to savagery without the walls of society present.
One of Ralph’s best character traits is his leadership. Good leadership is an important part of keeping a civilization in order. Ralph demonstrates his strong leadership early on in the novel. He knows if the island does not have rules and order it will be completely ch...
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...dea of being free overcame them as well as fear. He represented civilization and showed how a figure of civilization was present but the idea of being liberated from civilization will most likely lead to savagery. His loss of innocence reveals that evil is within all of humanity. The urge to hurt is within every human however, some are able to keep it out of sight but some cannot because the urge is too strong. The presence of authority changes how one acts because once the boys are found by the naval officer the boys who were just about to end civilization, started to weep as well because they realized all of what they had done, “[...] the other little boys began to shake and sob too” (Golding, 202). They wept now, but when they were acting as savages they didn’t. Lord of the Flies comes to show how inhumane society can become without a stable civilization.
Throughout the novel several different characters are introduced to the reader, such as Ralph, Jack, Simon and Piggy. With all these characters presented to the reader, one can get to see into their minds-eye, which allows the reader to analyze their character. In this case one could examine their basic morals and distinguish between the person’s natural instinct to rely on civilization or savagery to solve their problems. The author of the novel, William Golding, had a “first-hand experience of battle line action during World War II” which caused him to realize, “[that] The war alone was not what appalled him, but what he had learnt of the natural - and original- sinfulness of mankind did. It was the evil seen daily as commonplace and repeated by events it was possible to read in any newspaper which, he asserted, were the matter of Lord of the Flies” (Foster, 7-10). This being said by Golding leads one to the central problem in the novel the Lord of the Flies, which can be regarded as the distinction between civility and savagery. This can be seen through the characters that are presented in the novel, and how these boys go from a disciplined lifestyle, to now having to adapt to an unstructured and barbaric one in the jungle.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding Through his writing in the book Lord of the Flies, William Golding's view on. nature is not as in the plant and tree kind of nature, but in the nature of man at a young age of life. Golding is trying to portray what instincts and desires are like at an early time in a man's life when there are no adults around to help shape those. feelings to fit in with the mainstream society that people live in everyday. The nature of man is any and all of the instincts and desires of a person or animal.
In literature, as in life, people struggle with the principles and beliefs they hold. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, Ralph represents order, civilization, and leadership. On the island, Ralph is conflicted with his principles and beliefs that he has acquired over the years of living in a civilized and humane world and is caught between holding on to them or submitting to the barbarism that seems to have taken over the other boys.
William Golding’s book Lord of the Flies is a novel based on a group of schoolboys that were flying on a plane to escape World War II and were shot down. They were shot down over a deserted tropical island in Britain. The boys suffered a large fire that burned the island, little food, and a boy that is out to kill everyone by the end of the book.
Whether people will deny it or not, it is certainly apparent that human nature is all too evil; for there is a demon that lurks in everyone, just waiting to come out. Humans can build civilizations and attempt to deviate themselves from such basic instincts, yet nevertheless, evil is not something that they can run from; it is not something that they can defeat. William Golding knew this, and so in his book, Lord of the Flies, he presents so by portraying a microcosm of a society in the form of little British schoolboys. Their plane, in an attempt to escape from the raging war, came to its own demise as it was shot down, leaving the boys stranded on an island they know nothing of. Ralph, later on the leader of the boys, and with the help of
What is human nature? How does William Golding use it in such a simple story of English boys to precisely illustrate how truly destructive humans can be? Golding was in World War Two, he saw how destructive humans can be, and how a normal person can go from a civilized human beign into savages. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses the theme of human nature to show how easily society can collapse, and how self-destructive human nature is. Throughout the story Golding conveys a theme of how twisted and sick human nature can lead us to be. Many different parts of human nature can all lead to the collapse of society. Some of the aspects of human nature Golding plugged into the book are; destruction, demoralization, hysteria and panic. These emotions all attribute to the collapse of society. Golding includes character, conflict, and as well as symbolism to portray that men are inherently evil.
For instance, Ralph is a character who symbolizes civilization and order through his time as a leader. During this time, Ralph shows he is direct in the way he speaks. One example of this is when Ralph says,” You voted me chief. Now you do what I say” (81). Ralph says this in one of his assemblies to embellish onto them that he is the leader and they must listen to him. Ralph says this towards not just one of the kids, but all of the kids. A reason for this is because if he was not direct to the entire group, then they would not listen to him and there would be no order. Another example of Ralph’s civilized traits is his ability to be calm even in the tensest of moments. An example is this is when Ralph talks to Phil and Simon about the beast. Ralph does not shout in anger or jeer as Phil and Simon talk about the beast. Instead Ralph is calm and listens to them instead of telling them to stay quiet. These actions show that Ralph is an orderly and calm leader.
The author of this book, William Gerald Golding was born in Cornwall, England, in 1911. He graduated Oxford University. Also he had experience in teaching in school he could have been easy to set the character with young kids in the story. He had written many books before Lord of the Flies and he awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. William has an experience of being a Navy in World Wall Ⅱ, he could describe well in the story. In 1993 he ended up his life.
One thousand people were brutally murdered by German U-Boats during World War 2. The causes of D-day and the U-Boat peril were all stemmed from fear. Throughout World War Two, The Axis and Allied Powers were afraid that if they lost, their way of life and government would be taken away. William Golding represents these causes and actions in his novel, Lord of the Flies, with subtle visualizations that are conceptually similar to the actual causes of the two events of war. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding looks at how D-day and the U-Boat Peril triggered a sense of fear, which prompted the leaders of both sides to take drastic measures, and he implements these concepts into his book. The actions that the characters take in Golding's Lord of the Flies serve as an allegory to the D-day Invasion and the U-Boat Peril in World War Two.
In the Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses characters to convey the main idea of his novel. The story begins with a war, and a plane carrying several young boys, who are being evacuated, is shot down from the sky. There are no adult survivors; however; the boys were brought together by Ralph blowing on the conch shell. They formed a tribe to stay alive. Slowly the stability and the sense of safety in the group started to deteriorate, similar to the downfall of societies during World War II. They are not only hunting animals now, but they are killing each other like savages in order to stay alive. This action of killing is like Hitler during World War II and his persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.
The Lord of the Flies depicts a human race through its dynamic characters, which embody a combination of logic, goodness, violence, and anarchy. Ralph, the protagonist of the novel, is the “public face of civilization” (Anjum 4). In the beginning of the novel, naïve, young Ralph hopes to construct some form of civilization into the boys to attain rescue. However, as the novel progresses, Ralph becomes vulnerable to the savagery and anarchy of the other boys on the island. In The Lord of the Flies, Golding demonstrates this struggle between savagery and civilization through the characterization of Ralph, an innocent child who is forced into maturity by his experiences on the island.
In “The Lord of the Flies”, William Golding uses several characters to symbolize two main sides of humanity. Jack, Roger, Ralph, and Simon are all characters who represent an important part of humanity in “The Lord of the Flies”, although not all of them retain their good nature. As Jack and Roger resort to their savage instincts, they begin to represent the ruthlessly savage side of humanity. However, they are opposed by the order and civilization that is represented by Ralph and Simon. As a result of this conflict, it is shown that savagery will work to wipe out the order in society and the good in humanity if it is allowed to.
In the novel The Lord of the flies, William Golding illustrates the decline from innocence to savagery through a group of young boys. In the early chapters of The Lord of the Flies, the boys strive to maintain order. Throughout the book however, the organized civilization Ralph, Piggy, and Simon work diligently towards rapidly crumbles into pure, unadulterated, savagery. The book emphasized the idea that all humans have the potential for savagery, even the seemingly pure children of the book. The decline of all civilized behavior in these boys represents how easily all order can dissolve into chaos. The book’s antagonist, Jack, is the epitome of the evil present in us all. Conversely, the book’s protagonist, Ralph, and his only true ally, Piggy, both struggle to stifle their inner
In the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of young boys from England are evacuated out of their country due to a war. The plane is then shot down and results into a plane crash on a deserted island. The boys are left all alone with no adults, no supplies, and no one to come and rescue them. They are all on their own and have to establish a new “society”. The boys have to choose someone to govern them and that person ends up being Ralph, who had an internal struggle between what is right and wrong closer to the end of the novel. The boys turn into savages, killing each other, and showing their evil inside each of them. According to, William Golding man is inherently evil, evil is in all of us, but it is oppressed by society, and comes out when there is not anything to hold us back, civilization is what holds back evil from coming out, or it is what triggers evil inside of man.
William Golding's first book, Lord of the Flies, is the story of a group of boys of different backgrounds who are marooned on an unknown island when their plane crashes. As the boys try to organize and formulate a plan to get rescued, they begin to separate and as a result of the dissension a band of savage tribal hunters is formed. Eventually the "stranded boys in Lord of the Flies almost entirely shake off civilized behavior: (Riley 1: 119). When the confusion finally leads to a manhunt [for Ralph], the reader realizes that despite the strong sense of British character and civility that has been instilled in the youth throughout their lives, the boys have backpedaled and shown the underlying savage side existent in all humans. "Golding senses that institutions and order imposed from without are temporary, but man's irrationality and urge for destruction are enduring" (Riley 1: 119). The novel shows the reader how easy it is to revert back to the evil nature inherent in man. If a group of well-conditioned school boys can ultimately wind up committing various extreme travesties, one can imagine what adults, leaders of society, are capable of doing under the pressures of trying to maintain world relations.