Yaritza Ureña Mendez
AP English
April 11, 2014
In 1954 people were worried that a nuclear war would threaten the existence of humans and civilization. Author William Golding set his first novel in the midst of a nuclear war when a group of British schoolboys are being evacuated from England. After a plane crash, the boys find themselves on a deserted island with no adult supervision. Children are often seen as innocent creatures without violent tendencies. However, in the novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Golding exposes the idea that when alienated from society, they can become savages.
During World War II, Adolf Hitler, chancellor of Germany, set out on a mission to wipe out the entire Jewish population. He nearly succeeded and was able to kill off 75% of the Jewish people before he was stopped by the Allied forces of the United States, France, and Great Britain. Golding’s experiences in the war were in part an inspiration for Lord of the Flies (Bryfonski 11). During World War II, Golding learned that, “evil is inherent in human nature and can emerge at any time. And in any place” (Bryfonski 11). When the war was over, Golding’s views on human nature had changed. He no longer believed in the utopian world presented in R.M Ballantyne’s Coral Island but rather that humans are inherently evil. Golding came to the realization that the world would never be a perfect place as long as people as evil as the Nazis and their practices were allowed to continue to exist.
At first, the boys were delighted to be without adult supervision. Soon afterwards, the novelty wore off and they realized that they needed some form of authority and government. The conch that Piggy found became the symbol of authority for the boys. If anyo...
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... the same time. He was glad to see an adult because that meant salvation but repulsed because he now knew what humans were capable of and because the man was dead and could do nothing for them. With this apparition he realized that the boys were doomed (Golding 103). After his conversation with the ‘lord of the flies’ he realized that they were doomed because the beast was the evil that resided in the boys (Bryfonski 23). As the representation of Jesus, when he is killed, his death symbolized the loss of innocence. Once the innocence is lost, evil is free to take over the society. He could have been their salvation but instead was sacrificed for the sins of the society. Suddenly, the innocent boys transformed from killing the pigs out of the necessity for survival into cold blooded murderers.
In the end, the boys’ true salvation comes in the form of a naval officer.
It is said, that humans only have three options in life: to commit suicide, chose to believe in a divine power or to accept the absurd and create one’s own meaning to life. This is portrayed through the three primary characters of the Lord of the Flies. For instance, Jack is the metaphorical representation of the individual who commits suicide. He is overwhelmed by the current situation, and succumbs to his primitive senses. This is representative of suicide as Jack lost everything that he
THE LUCIFER EFFECT IN LIFE AND LORD OF THE FLIES Sometimes people especially naïve teenagers find themselves under the influence of their pears or the greater crowd or even the more predominant individual. And subsequently one finds themselves in some monumental mayhem. This is known as the Lucifer Effects. The Lucifer Effect is where someone crosses the line of good and evil, because of the manipulation of authority or the crowd flow, to do something unethical. Throughout the cataclysmic course
Coined by philosopher and sociologist Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1941), the term 'bildungsroman' literally translates to 'novel of formation'. The genre, more often described as the 'coming of age' novel explores the transition in the protagonist from innocence to adulthood. Conjecture, however, remains as to the area incorporated into the genre. 'Bildungsroman' is often used as an umbrella term to include all works featuring an innocence-to-maturity transition, however, staunch critics of the genre have
order. William Golding tackles this question in The Lord of the Flies, placing a group of young British boys alone on an uninhabited island. Each of the boys, although drastically different and representations of a variety of philosophies, are united by