Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, demonstrates the fact of how society fails when human survival is the only option. In the novel, a group of British boys are stranded on an island, slowly becoming savages and fighting each other. However, as current life shows, people join together in light of major disasters. Even at their worst, society still manages to stand on their own and rise above. The earthquakes from Nepal in May and April help to demonstrate this point. Articles like “Nepal Quake: Death Toll Passes 3,200 as Nation Struggles with Devastation” exemplify that while events that are similar to how they are described in Lord of the Flies, society prevails for the greater good of the population, rather than failing and losing its grip in humanity. The article, “Nepal Quake: Death Toll Passes 3,200 as Nation Struggles with Devastation”, talks about the first earthquake and how people are joining together for the sake of survival. …show more content…
It struck at a depth of15 kilometers, or 9.3 miles. At the time the article was written, at least 48 people had been killed and more than 1,000 were injured (Nepal Earthquake: Dozens Die in New Tremor Near Everest). The events of the earthquake had caused many residents to run, panicked and scared, into the streets of Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital. A nurse in Namche Bazaar, Rhita Doma Sherpa, described the aftermath of the school she worked at: "The school building is cracked and bits of it, I can see, they have collapsed. It was lunchtime. All the kids were outside." (Nepal Earthquake: Dozens Die in New Tremor Near Everest) The earthquake was one of the largest to hit Nepal, suffered aftershocks since 25 April, the first one. It had also impacted the world population, ranging simply from words of support to social media being used to contact friends and family who were affected by the
When placed on a deserted island, a group of strangers banded together to try to survive. They decided on a leader, problem-solved, fought off a beast, and formed their own society, even if it was somewhat flawed. This was the situation in the famous TV show, Lost. The Lord of the Flies and Lost are similar in these many different ways, with the exception that the show featured a tribe of adults instead of children. That just proves how difficult it is to maintain order in a society; even the adults struggled with keeping it peaceful and civilized. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding presents a broken society of savage boys fighting one another to suggest that man’s capacity for evil is brought out by the need for power and control.
In life today, society holds many expectations of its people. Members of society are expected to behave in a civilized manner; conforming to law, following social norms, and acting with dignity and without violence. When the boys became marooned on the island, they were forced to question the expectations they had always observed. This brought about a large battle between those who decided to remain civil and those who would rather rebel. Civilization is pitted against acts of savagery in a plethora of ways in Lord of the Flies when determining who had the right to speak during assemblies, when the group hunted pigs, throughout the struggle over Piggy’s glasses, and finally with Simon’s death.
The Lord of the Flies is a representation of what is still alive and well in today’s society throughout the world. While the obvious solution to avoiding a dystopian nature would be to coexist in a proper and civil society, there are too many variables in human nature to achieve such a utopia. They “wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air.” (Golding) One can only hope that a perfect society can be reached in their lifetime.
The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, was first published in 1954. This fabulous story is about a group of English schoolboys who get stranded on an island after a plane accident. Some say that this story is considered a political allegory because it shows different types of governments and in many ways represents our society. These boys have different views on decision-making and ethical decisions which cause dramatic changes in the way everyone fights for survival. The Lord of the Flies was Golding’s first novel which soon became a very popular and instructive novel for high school and college students. Golding was born in 1911 and passed away in 1993. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983. “His novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today” (Nobel Foundation, 1983, http://www.william-golding.co.uk/person.html). The two types of governments in this novel were: totalitarian and democratic. Ralph started as leader of the crew and represented the democratic government. Jack, in the other hand, represented the totalitarian government which was introduced later in the novel and started out as a small rebel group. These two characters in the novel were the ones who made the big decisions. One worried about the future and being rescued, while the other wanted to have fun and live the moment. Over all, Golding does a good job implying how our society works and the different consequences that occur when the community looses logical and ethical thinking.
On the 12th of January 2010, a quake 15 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince devastated the people of Haiti. The magnitude of the quake was 7.0 with many aftershocks to follow the initial quake. The damage was so cataclysmic which led to the occurrence of many casualties, about 300,000 people were injured and over one million were left homeless. Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere and is still struggling to rebuild itself. (Poster of the Haiti Earthquake, USGS Newsroom)
Society has a great impact on our lives. It tells us how to act, what to wear, what to eat and what decisions to make. Society, though, is often corrupted and shapes us in a certain way. Jean Jacques Rousseau, a late Enlightenment thinker felt strongly about this and stated that humanity must be free of society and its bounds and therefore argued that we should act like the savages who were free of society’s bonds. Rousseau was not alone in this thinking as evidence of societal corruption is seen in D.H. Lawrence’s poem, “Snake,” and in William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies. Rousseau’s ideas of societal corruption are quite prevalent in both the novel and the poem. In addition, the theme of choices and their consequences can also be seen.
Through out time, people have been trying to create a system of constancy, which provides order. Every society has gone through chaos and disorder, until there was a proper body of administrative leaders that satisfies the people. A society can have many varieties of government, but through a stretch of time, societies have discovered the right type of government for its people. In the book, Lord Of The Flies, the boys in the book are a prefect example for how a society starts off. During World War II, a group of British boys fly over the ocean, but there plane crashes. They are on an island alone and they must attempt to survive on the island with limit supplies. The anarchy on the island, which the boys formed turns into a two dictatorships. In the Lord Of The Files by William Golding, the boys fail to form an effective government. Ultimately the reasons are they lacked respect for natural rights, a sensible leader, and a separation in power.
The Haiti earthquake that occurred on January 12, 2010 just fifteen miles south of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince was a severely large-scale earthquake, at a magnitude of 7.0. The initial shock was then followed by a series of aftershocks with magnitudes ranging up to 5.9. Over three hundred thousand people died due to this extreme chaos. Many buildings collapsed and disintegrated under the force of the quake; both the cathedral and National Palace in Port-au-Prince were heavily damaged. In the aftermath of this tragedy, efforts to aid the people of Haiti with medical assistance, water, and food were hampered by the loss of communication lines as well as by roads blocked by debris. Over one million people were left homeless due to this quake. Two days after the earthquake, journalist Leonard Pitts wrote “Sometimes the Earth is Cruel,” an article describing how the people of Haiti responded to the disaster. In “Sometimes the Earth is Cruel,” a major theme is that some things are inevitable.
However social normalities that are built in more strongly (such as, “don’t kill each other”) are deeper and will take longer to decay. This is also why after being hungry for an extreme amount of time, people will resort to cannibalism. This breakdown of society is what happens without rules and punishment, which is why law is such a basic fundamental of any civilization. Imagine for example, murder is legalized in New York. Absolute chaos would ensue, though due to the large amount of people, this would happen a lot faster than it would with the small group of people we find in Lord of The Flies. The novel emphasizes this topic and depicts, I think accurately, what would happen if a group of male pre-teens were thrust onto a barren island left to their own emotions. Their miniature immature society would crumble under the wants of all children their age as realized by this quote, “If I blow the conch and they don’t come back; then we’ve had it. We shan’t keep the fire going. We’ll be like animals. We’ll never be rescued.”(92). That signifies the beginning of the end in the
The effects caused by earthquakes are devastating. They cause loss of human life and have effects on infrastructure and economy. Earthquakes can happen at any time anywhere. In January 12, 2010 an earthquake of a magnitude of 7.0 hit the nation of Haiti. An estimation of 316,000 people were killed, and more than 1.3 million Haitians were left homeless (Earthquake Information for 2010). Haiti was in a terrified chaos. After the earthquake, families were separated because many of the members were killed. Homes, schools, and hospitals were demolished. People lost their most valuable belongings. It will take time for the country to recover from this terrible disaster. The long damages are economic issues, health-state, and environmental issues that effect in the beautiful island of Haiti.
In William Golding’s book Lord of the flies he explains how society affects human nature. Human beings are unpredictable and vulnerable, this makes them susceptible and unpredictable. William Golding clarifies how society influences individual actions. To achieve this the author uses tormenting, fictional belief, and the corruption in humanity throughout the story. We live in a world of changes, the writer has utilized the power of the mind to prove how these changes humans.
Have you ever been crushed to your death by a boulder falling on top of you? In the book,”The Lord of the Flies” that happens to someone because of their beliefs of how to maintain some sort of order to survive. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a book that has a group of young teenage boys stranded on an island trying to find a way to survive. This raises a lot of conflict between the boys as they don’t know how to maintain order and rather than finding a way to create a new way to create order, they slowly turn into savages at each others necks. As many books are made with some allegorical connection, this book is no different as it shows the conflict between religion and the government
Without government, society degenerates and people lose their capacity for moral behaviour. Survivors in Haiti say that if other countries had not provided aid and restored order, there would be much more violence and everyone would only serve themselves. In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the author uses the events on the island to demonstrate that people require government to restrain their impulses. The creation of a democratic government with Ralph as chief allows the inhabitants of the island to make decisions together and take everyone’s viewpoint into consideration. Soon, however, the democracy begins to be disregarded. When Jack creates a dictatorship, he fails to restrain the impulsive behaviour of the boys, which demonstrates the superiority of Ralph’s government.
On Earthquakes An earthquake is a shaking or trembling of the crust of the earth caused by underground volcanic action or by the breaking and shifting of rock beneath the surface. The volcanic action and shifting rocks create strain which continues to build to a sudden release of pressure resulting in a shock wave. The vibrations produced in the crust can vary from barely noticeable to enormously destructive. Shock waves can be classified into two broad categories. Waves that send particles oscillating back and forth in the same direction as the waves are traveling are called primary.
Society The novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding is about a group of boys that were in a plane crash in the 1940’s during a nuclear War. The plane is shot down and lands on a tropical island. Some boys try to function as a whole group, but see obstacles as time goes on. The novel is about civilization and social order.