The Lord of the Flies written by William Golding is a popular novel that deals with many themes. The theme I will talk about is how humans and human nature can easily be corrupted by surrounding influences and themselves. Simon is corrupted by the natural environment and the nature of people around him. In contrast, there is Jack who was only corrupted by his obsessions. Also, Ralph became morally corrupted after a combination of spending time with Jack’s group and being by himself. The Lord of the Flies shows that anyone can be corrupted by circumstance especially if left alone.
Simon is corrupted by uncontrollable forces like nature and the actions of the people around him. In the beginning of The Lord of the Flies, Simon is the positive and helpful character: “Simon found for [the litteuns] the fruit they could not reach, pulled off the choicest from up in the foliage, passed them back down to the endless, outstretched hands” (Golding, 57). In this quote, Simon helps out the littleuns which none of the other biguns on the island do showing his kindness and compassion. However, later in the novel, that kindness and compassion is eroded when he is laughed at for his honest suggestion: “Simon’s effort fell about him in ruins; the laughter beat him cruelly and he shrank away defenseless to his seat” (96). Shortly after he is laughed at and mocked by the assembly, he embarks on a journey that would change the island forever. This is when he discovers “the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick” (152). He also imagines a conversation:
‘You are a silly little boy,’ said the Lord of the Flies, ‘just an ignorant, silly little boy.’ … ‘Don’t you agree?’ said the Lord of the Flies. ‘Aren’t you just a silly little boy?’ … ‘Well then,’ said...
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... refusing to acknowledge his former allies by name. By the end of the novel, Ralph became morally corrupted after spending too much time with Jack’s group and himself.
Lord of the Flies shows how anyone, children in particular, can be corrupted by extreme circumstance when everyone splits up. After Simon split from the group, he experienced the most corruption with an imaginary Lord of the Flies. Jack was the physical form of the Lord of the Flies, after his obsession with hunting leads him to become the most corrupted on the island. After spending too much time hunting with Jack, Ralph started to slide down a slippery slope culminating with a brutal assault. In conclusion, The Lord of the Flies shows that the world of children is not as innocent as it seems.
Works Cited
Golding, William. The Lord of the Flies. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1954. Print
Simon, the wisest, calmest, and maturest of all the boys, is off by himself “talking” to a pig, perhaps going crazy. All others are sitting around the fire relaxing, ignoring the fact that one of the the wisest men of all has himself begun to lose sanity, possibly symbolic of the condition of people on the island. Of course, readers know, by the description of the bulging clouds, that the sky will soon break and, symbolically, something terrible within the plot will soon happen. Indeed, the entire novel has built to this point, as readers have observed the downward spiral of morality amidst the moral characters and increased savagery. Simon has observed this, and perhaps because he tends to take in everything inwardly, his depression over the gradual decline in the children on the island has caused him to become somewhat senile. Simon continues his “conversation” with the pig whom he calls “the lord of the flies” (“Beelzebub” in Hebrew, meaning “the devil”), and it is as if he is being tempted by the devil, or corrupt immorality that has taken over the other children on the island. However, he is able to be triumphant over the temptations, and staggers back down to the island to inform the other children that the beast on the island is
Lord of the Flies has several themes that are the key to understanding of literature. Three of the themes of this novel are the fear, courage and lastly survival. Fear has been surrounded throughout the entire novel. With the amount of fear because of an apparent beast, many of the people on the island have changed. Most of the boys have become more violent throughout the novel and have no sense of direction as what to do next. Jack was one of those people who had changed majorly throughout the novel. Courage is one of the most important things to have mentally and physically when you’re stuck in an unknown island. Ralph’s courage in the book became strong when he had lost two of his close companions in Simon and Piggy. Survival is the best theme in this novel simply because of the lack of tools and the laziness of the people throughout the book. These themes show how great and wonderful this book is, and if you read it thoroughly, you will understand the perils and the adventure of Ralph, Jack and the rest of the boys in Lord of the Flies.
The most influential saying in the lord of the flies is the fact that the symbolism represents the many statistics in the communal world which is relatively amazing for a book to possibly recreate. The way that William Golding showed his audience in this book how the negativity of the world and the wickedness in a man’s heart is beyond belief. This can be shown through the development of the children who progressively become more and more malevolence as the days pass. It can be made known through the items that represent the civilized world or ‘the adult’ society. It’s reasonably scary when we are exposed to the evilness sinfulness people have, even those that we perceive as innocent can be deceiving.
Simon is the morally good boy. His selflessness and goodness comes from within. He is kind to the little boys, and helps the outcasts. For example, when none of the boys want to give Piggy meat from the first pig, Simon steps up and takes him meat. "Simon…wiped his mouth and shoved his piece of meat over the rocks to Piggy…"(p.74) While everyone else is cruel to the young ones, he helps the "lil'uns" grab meat from the trees when they can't reach. "Simon found for them the fruit they could not reach, pulled off the choicest…passed them back to the endless, outstretched hands." (p.56) Simon helps those whom no one else is kind to, perhaps remembering that he was looked down upon once. He realizes what it's like to be scorned and to be the "little one", so he tries to make it less miserable for the outcasts by being kind to them. He wants to always help others, so when he discovers the beast is inside of everyone, not external, as they had imagined, he instantly runs down the mountain to tell him. He helps others even to the point of death.
Often in our lives other people affect us in both negative and positive ways. In the case of Lord of the Flies, the kids influence one another while on the island, in mostly negative ways. These influences cause for mental changes in the brain. Most of the time, mental changes affect physical changes. However, in some rare occasions it is the other way around. While on the island the boys go through numerous physical and mental changes. Although mental changes are somewhat more significant than physical changes, physical changes are still very much apparent and can sometimes cause for mental change.
The author, William Golding uses the main characters of Ralph, Jack, and Simon in The Lord of the Flies to portray how their desire for leadership, combined with lack of compromise leads to the fall of their society. This desire for leadership and compromise led to the fall of their society just like multiple countries during times of wars.
The novel Lord of the Flies was full of challenges that the boys overcame in order to survive. Conflicts within themselves, with nature and with each other constantly test the children’s ability to endure. Struggles against the natural elements of the island, rival groups or fear of the unknown continually appear throughout the story. Some of the boys on the island did not survive the quarrels that they faced. They perished because they were lacking something that the surviving boys did not. The survivors had a natural primal instinct or a physical or mental advantage over the boys who did not make it. ‘Only the strong survive’ is an important element that runs through the novel Lord of the Flies because in order to survive the boys must turn to their primitive instincts of physical strength and savagery.
Human nature has been debated for centuries, everyone coming up with their own theories, pulling their sources from religious texts, wars, experiments, or daily life. William Golding and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, born in very different times and countries were very opposite in their views compared to one another. William Golding believed that human nature was immoral and evil, and there has been evidence of this all the way to the beginning of human society. Without laws or moral boundaries, humans would plunder, steal, and murder to their hearts content, delighting in their new found freedom to let go of social philosophies imposed upon them. Rousseau, however, believed that human nature was naturally just and moral, and it was society’s laws that made them immoral. Social norms and laws create limitation and superfluous need, and it is within those boundaries that humans become enslaved to “moral inequality.” Without laws and social norms, humans will revert back to their natural goodness. It is the polar opposite of Golding’s belief. Golding’s philosophy, however, is more in line to my own, as in my opinion, Rousseau’s belief is a rather naïve outlook on life.
In William Golding's Lord of the Flies a group of kids who are fleeing a war, plane crashes and they are stranded on a deserted island without Adult supervision. The first thing all the kids do is vote for a chief and Ralph, who is more responsible, wins over Jack. They are the choices because Ralph is the Colonel of the whole group and Jack is the oldest out of all the boys. As the story goes on and when Jack starts his own group all of the kids lose sight of their main goal, to be rescued. They're all having too much fun when they switch over to Jack's group hunting and killing for food. In the story there are four main characters that are in a sense the leaders of the crew. There's Piggy and a quiet Simon who do not possess the scrappiness that Ralph and Jack do. These strengths are what help Ralph and Jack survive. Piggy is always talking about how his Auntie would not let him do this or that and Simon was just a quiet, reserved kid who is regarded as weird just due to the fact that he is calm.
In the novel, "Lord of the Flies," a group of British boys are left on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. Throughout the novel, they have conflicts between civilization and savagery, good vs. evil, order vs. chaos, and reason vs. impulse. What would it be like if the boys were replaced by a group of girls? Would they behave the same way they did in the novel? I believe that the girls would act in the same behavior as the boys in all ways because, everyone is installed with evil inside them which is their natural instinct, also because in life there is always a power struggle in all manners, and the outcome with the girls would be similar-since both sexes would plan on getting rescued.
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.
Humans are intricate. They have built civilizations and invented the concept of society, moving accordingly from savage primal instincts to disciplined behaviour. William Golding, however, does not praise humanity in his pessimistic novel, Lord of The Flies, which tells the story of a group of British schoolboys who are stranded on an uninhabited tropical island without any adults – a dystopia. Golding evidently expresses three views of humanity in this novel. He suggests that, without the rules and restrictions on which societies and civilizations are built, humans are intrinsically selfish, impulsive and violent.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel that represents a microcosm of society in a tale about children stranded on an island. Of the group of young boys there are two who want to lead for the duration of their stay, Jack and Ralph. Through the opposing characters of Jack and Ralph, Golding reveals the gradual process from democracy to dictatorship from Ralph's democratic election to his lack of law enforcement to Jack's strict rule and his violent law enforcement.
Failure of individual ethics is firmly portrayed in the novel where the author says “The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that, the shape of society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical and respectable.” The predominant theme of “Lord of the Flies” is civilization vs savagery. Throughout the novel Golding argues that people are essentially savage, attracted towards violence, however humans have been able to create civilizations as the years passed by. The clash between Ralph and Jack represents civilizations vs savagery. This is expressed through the boys’ attitude towards authority, where Ralph uses his authority to create rules, safeguard the group and implement the moral and ethical values, while Jack wants to satisfy his desires through power. When Jack creates his own tribe, he wants all the boys to not only help him but worship him. This is similar to how Hitler was during WW2, his desire for power made him think that he is the most superior and he went to an extent of killing the Jews without any valid reason claiming that they are not the right race. This suggests that Golding has been able bring out Hitler through Jacks actions. When Jack doesn’t identify the importance of society and disobeys Ralph’s authority, his true character emerges. Through this Golding brings out that savagery is an unavoidable fact of humans, civilization can help alleviate its growth. The Lord of the Flies is an annals of civilization leading to savagery in human nature, the boys who are shaped by the civilized British society become savages through apprehension, superstition and
Throughout the novel, Lord of the Flies, the characters display a variety of good and evil. Goulding uses the actions of Ralph, Jack, and Simon to illustrate the nature of good and evil which is present in everyone.