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A Broken Child In William Golding's 'Lord Of The Flies'

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A broken child
“Now, there was no parent to let fall a heavy hand” (Golding 60). Freed from a society that struck him down for his actions Roger, with the lack of understanding that comes with childhood, wrecked havoc upon the island he was trapped on in the events of Lord of the flies. In William Golding’s novel, a group of children of various ages are trapped on an island with no adults. The boys attempt to form a society on the island, but their attempts fail spectacularly. A rift forms in the tribe with nearly all of the boys becoming upset with the current leader,Ralph, and leaving to form a new tribe. This new tribe is completely savage, and one amongst them, Roger, ended up taking a life. Roger, however, cannot be held accountable. Roger…show more content…
This method consisted of striking Roger for any transgression as indicated by the above quote. This kind of abuse in the formative years “can lead to aggressive or even criminal behavior” (Beller). Abusing a child can have detrimental effects on their mental health, and this happened to Roger to a great degree. Roger most likely already had an explosive personality, and stacking bodily harm from parents on top of that can lead to a child in need of serious psychological help that never arrived. Roger was also never actually taught the majority of the values that society deems necessary most likely because his parents were far too busy striking him for not knowing values they never bothered to teach him. Roger cannot be held accountable as his mental well being was demolished by his parents well before he was thrust into extreme circumstances that often left him hungry, and frustrated. These factors lead to Roger to simply be a damaged soul with a woeful lack of comprehension of the world around…show more content…
There are a slew of factors on the island which can lead to this level of violence “Chaos is one, fear is another” (Golding). The island was extremely chaotic, and fearful with no supervision from anyone with a fully developed frontal lobe. The only semblance of order was promptly crushed early on, leading to a revolt and nearly every child descending into violence, even ones that did not have as painful a childhood such as the leader elected among them, Ralph. Fear ran rampant on the island as none of the children really understood much about the island. A belief spread on the island that there was an unkillable beast hunting down the boys, plotting their destruction. With someone like Roger who was physically strong and most likely found solace in that, a being he had no power to stop must have been downright terrifying. When people are afraid, especially children with their lack of judgment, they lash out in bursts of violence. This is exactly what happened to Roger, he succumbed to fear like the rest of us would have, and acted as any of us would have at his age in his
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