Thomas Hobbes once said, “Hereby it is a manifest, that during the time man live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war . . .” (Hobbes 64). Hobbes, an Enlightenment thinker, believes that humans are inherently evil, and if lacking a strong moral leader, everything will resort to an existence of chaos. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies effectively provides numerous instances that highlights Hobbes’ viewpoint. Throughout the story, it becomes evident that the manner in which the boys increasingly lose their civility and degenerate into savages, how they end up doing anything either to survive or simply to acquire perverse enjoyment. Golding ably demonstrates the innate evil in human through religious allegories, involving events, characters, and settings clearly based on the Bible.
Golding uses events that relates to several biblical characters’ actions in the novel. One such event employed by the author involves Ralph scolding Jack for allowing the rescue-fire die out, at which point Jack “noticed Ralph’s scarred nakedness . . . His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing” (Golding 70). Nakedness symbolizes innocence. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are not aware of their nakedness until they have been corrupted by Satan. Hence, when Jack notices Ralph’s nakedness, it is clear that he has been corrupted. He is no longer the innocent boy he once was. Furthermore, knowledge symbolizes the fruit of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, which ultimately corrupts its two inhabitance. Jack’s mind abounds with the fruit of knowledge, defiling him and turn...
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...ord of the Flies in Golding’s book. Clearly, the island parallels the Garden of Eden in terms of atmosphere and scenery, as well as the ultimate fate.
Through the skillful use of religious allegory, William Golding blends depth to what may seem like a mere adventure novel to some. For Judaic Christians, the Bible is the ultimate authority in moral guidance. Through the author’s adaptation of its most familiar stories, readers are invited to interpret similarities and differences between the Bible and Golding’s fine work. The shocking evil ultimately committed by most of the boys in order to survive ─ or worse simply for fun ─ effectively illustrates Golding’s belief that humans are innately evil.
Works Cited
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Perigee Books, 1954. Print.
Hobbes, Thomas. The Leviathan. New York: George Routledge and Sons, 1886. E-book.
To start off, Golding displays Ralph’s character development with a deeper meaning connecting Ralph with Adam in Garden of Eden. In the beginning of the book, Ralph takes his clothes off and goes swimming. The author describes, “He…stood there naked” (10). “Ralph danced out in the hot air” (11). Like Ralph, Adam is also playful and innocent. Ralph and Adam both come with main objectives. Ralph’s is to remain civilized, and Adam’s is to never eat the fruit from the tree. However, when faced with conflict Ralph ends up taking part in the murder of Simon and the savagery within him grows. Similar of that to Adam when he takes some of the fruit off the tree, he looses his clothes (innocence) and God drove Adam out of the Garden of Eden. Ralph discovers the “darkness of man’s heart” (202), and then ends up getting rescued. Golding based Ralph on the Garden of Eden to show the inevitable loss of innocence through the gaining of knowledge.
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
Golding illustrates mankind’s essential illness when the boy’s pillage the once beautiful Garden of Eden and render it a perverted Eden. When the boy’s first crash on the island, Golding describes it as enchanting, full of beautiful waters and tress that cover the skyline. Golding illustrates the enchanting beauty of the island when he depicts, “ This was filled with a blue flower, a rock plant of some sort, and the overflow hung down the vent and spilled lavishly among the canopy of the forest. The air was thick with butterflies, lifting, fluttering, settling” (Golding 28). Clearly, before the evils of mankind disturb the island, it is quite beautiful. However, this charming landscape does not last forever, as the boys light half the island on fire when they try to make a signal fire. Golding conveys the children are destroying the once beautiful island and turning it int...
The novel “Lord of the Flies” was written by William Golding to demonstrate the problems of society and the sinful nature of man.
William Golding’s novel ‘The Lord of The flies’ presents us with a group of English boys who are isolated on a desert island, left to try and retain a civilised society. In this novel Golding manages to display the boys slow descent into savagery as democracy on the island diminishes.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies portrays the lives of young British boys whose plane crashed on a deserted island and their struggle for survival. The task of survival was challenging for such young boys, while maintaining the civilized orders and humanity they were so accustomed too. These extremely difficult circumstances and the need for survival turned these innocent boys into the most primitive and savaged mankind could imagine. William Golding illustrates man’s capacity for evil, which is revealed in man’s inherent nature. Golding uses characterization, symbolism and style of writing to show man’s inhumanity and evil towards one another.
Golding has a rather pessimistic view of humanity having selfishness, impulsiveness and violence within, shown in his dark yet allegorical novel Lord of the Flies. Throughout the novel, the boys show great self-concern, act rashly, and pummel beasts, boys and bacon. The delicate facade of society is easily toppled by man's true beastly nature.
...and is being consumed by fire, concludes the end of a long and treacherous experience for each of the boys. Through the process of showing how the boys arrive on the island conditioned by society to act civilized and leave the island at the end more savage and more evil, Golding succeeds in trying to depict how man possesses inherent evil. The concept of inner evil in man can be connected to the inner evil in Brutus, from the play Julius Caesar by Shakespeare. While Brutus is a trusted advisor and good friend to Caesar, he still conspires and is involved with the assassination of Caesar. His desire to murder, even as he holds a prominent position among Caesar’s advisors, provides proof of his inherent evil. Golding ultimately seeks to prove in the Lord of the Flies that evil is the prevalent force in man and that it takes precedence over even childhood innocence.
This paper will explore the three elements of innate evil within William Golding's, Lord of the Flies, the change from civilization to savagery, the beast, and the battle on the island. Golding represents evil through his character's, their actions, and symbolism. The island becomes the biggest representation of evil because it's where the entire novel takes place. The change from civilization to savagery is another representation of how easily people can change from good to evil under unusual circumstances. Golding also explores the evil within all humans though the beast, because it's their only chance for survival and survival instinct takes over. In doing so, this paper will prove that Lord of the Flies exemplifies the innate evil that exists within all humans.
Yet, this evil is only brought about amongst specific environmental conditions, which Golding synthesized in the book. The most interesting aspect and probably the most influential characteristic of the story is found to be the age of the characters. The author successfully attempts to show how capable the aspect of evil is among human beings. However, Golding perfects this idea as he uses children, who represent purity and innocence in a normal society. Through the use of children, the reader finds that barbarity and savagery can exist amongst even the smallest and most innocuous form of human beings.
When viewing the atrocities of today's world on television, the starving children, the wars, the injustices, one cannot help but think that evil is rampant in this day and age. However, people in society must be aware that evil is not an external force embodied in a society but resides within each person. Man has both good qualities and faults. He must come to control these faults in order to be a good person. In the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding deals with this same evil which exists in all of his characters. With his mastery of such literary tools as structure, syntax, diction and imagery, The author creates a cheerless, sardonic tone to convey his own views of the nature of man and man’s role within society.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies shows man’s inhumanity to man. This novel shows readers good vs. evil through children. It uses their way of coping with being stranded on an island to show us how corrupt humans really are.
The novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding used a group of British boys beached on a deserted island to illustrate the malicious nature in mankind. Lord of the Flies dealt with the changes the boys underwent as they gradually adapted to the freedom from their society. William Golding's basic philosophy that man was inherently evil was expressed in such instances as the death of Simon, the beast within the boys, and the way Ralph was fervently hunted.
The symbolical allegory “Lord of the Flies” written by William Golding, symbolizes through different characters of how humankind are evil from the core. The story of a group of schoolboys trapped on a deserted island takes more of a symbolizing story than it might seem. Each detail takes a position in the story to show the core of humanity. A group of young boys together without adult supervision causes the boys to slowly reveal their savage core. Being a part of the English society has taught them to make rules and follow them, but slowly as they realize that there are no grownups are there to stop them, the revealing of their nature begins. William Golding states in his interview concerning the theme of the book, “The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature.” (Golding 204). The human race has been evil ever since Adam and Eve sinned, but through the Bible, we try our best to cover the core of our hearts with rules and morality.
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.