William Golding's Lord Of the Flies
Theme:
Most people perceive children as being innocent, precious beings. Some believe that they are angelic. Put in the wrong situations though, they can become savage beasts. The innocence leaves their bodies and they are no longer precious. The survival of the fittest instinct kicks on and they can become killers. In the book Lord of the Flies the theme is that kids are not as innocent s they seem.
At the beginning of the book the boys seem to have peace and order. They help one another out. They elect Ralph as their leader. They follow his orders when they need to work together. The conch shell is used to bring order within the group of boys. Soon these practices die out and the kids start to change.
Jack and his group of hunters, began to get a thrill from killing pigs. Jack and the hunters also lose all respect for Ralph and the conch. They start their own tribe, who soul purpose is to hunt and have rituals. The killings of the pigs start to bore them so they began to find other things to kill.
The hunters start forcing people to join the tribe through threats. Then the threats lead to the killings of two boys. The hunters first kill Simon , whom they think is a beast. Then they kill Piggy by rolling a stone on top of him. With the two killing under their belt they soon began to go after Ralph. They chase him all over the island but soon he is rescued. The naval officer witnesses how the children had turned from well-behaved boys to savage beast.
Though children are not as innocent as they seem they still hold a close place in their parents heart. They are also human just like everyone else. They know the difference between black and white and right and wrong. The survival of the fittest instinct is something that every creature on this planet has. The weak one always loose. The book showed this well.
Important Passages:
"Ralph sat on a fallen trunk, his left side to the sun. On his right were most of the choir; on his left the larger boys who had not known each other before...before him small children squatted in the grass.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is a sordid tale about a group of kids who are stranded on a deserted island after their plane crashes. The story is set during the Atomic War and plenty of references are made to the fact. However, the real key to the story lies in the role of Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies. Beelzebub has a central role in the story as he represents the Beast, or evil, that dwells within all humans. The Beast cannot be hunted and since it dwells within all humans, humans are all guilty because mankind is sick. The destruction of mankind is a point that Golding makes apparent often in this novel. He establishes early on that Beelzebub is a force within all humans that drives them to destroy and maim. In the story the central emblem of the story lies in the dead airman. The boys mistake him for Beelzebub and basically begin to worship him.
Jack finds a pig while hunting, yet he cannot kill it, his reason being, “because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting living flesh; because of the unbearable blood” (31). Because of the strictly regulated society Jack has grown up in, he finds it disturbing to kill an animal, even if he must do it to have food. Later in the story, changes can be seen in the boys from when they first arrived on the island. During an assembly, the boys discuss how to track the “beast” living on the island, and Jack speaks without holding the conch. After being reprimanded for that he says, “Conch! Conch!...We don't need the conch anymore… It's time some people knew they've got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us” (101). Jack’s disregard for the conch shows his growing distaste for laws and civilization. He also challenges Ralph's authority by implying he should be in charge of decisions taken for the group. After some time, Ralph is only left with Piggy, Samneric, and some littluns on his side of the island. These boys realize everyone else has become savage.
It is in these games were the boys get carried away and Ralph feels a
Katherine Paterson once said, “To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.” William Golding, who is a Nobel Prize winner for literature, writes Lord of the Flies, originally published in 1954. Golding’s novel is about a group of boys who crash land on an island. All of the adults are dead and they are abandoned on an island. The boys try to set rules and create a fire in efforts of being rescued. The group of boys chooses Ralph to be their leader. This choosing makes a literary character named Jack, who doesn’t show his anger until half way through the plot. The novel shows the nature of humans and how fear can control them. The novel also shows the difference between good and evil. Golding experienced this when he was in World War II. There were many times fear controlled the boys in the island in Lord of the Flies.
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.
Like Jack, the boys no longer value kindness, compassion, or empathy, Instead, they resort to violence and force. This is shown when the boys do their dance and chant “kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” (Golding 168) This chant is one of violence and savagery. When the boys see Simon crawling out of the jungle, they don’t care if it’s a human or a beast, their first instinct is just to kill. Another example of the boy’s lack of compassion and empathy, is when they participate in tying up Wilfred and allow Jack to beat him for no apparent reason. Jack’s tribe continues to slip further into savagery. They rebel against, and destroy everything that represents kindness, order and civilization. This is evident when Jack, Roger, and Maurice go to Ralph’s camp, taunt Piggy, steal his glasses to make a fire, and beat up the civilized group. Piggy’s death and the breaking of the conch also represent the group’s disintegration of humanity. Piggy says while holding the conch: “Which is better-to be a pack of painted niggers like you are, or be sensible like Ralph is?” (Golding 200) The tribe chooses savagery over order when Roger releases the boulder that kills Piggy, and shatters the conch. The evolution of savagery is complete when the group’s morals and values become the laws in which they abide
In William Golding's Lord of The Flies, the boys try to maintain civility, but nature pulls them into savagery. Nature always seems to pull man in, even when man tries to fight it; the boys give in by hunting, fighting, and doing whatever they please. All of this is because there is no authority in nature. The boys try to maintain civilization on the island, but nature is gradually luring them in and revealing their true human instincts.
The classic novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding is an exciting adventure deep into the nether regions of the mind. The part of the brain that is suppressed by the mundane tasks of modern society. It is a struggle between Ralph and Jack, the boys and the Beast, good and evil.
While the boys are under Jack's control, they quickly went back into how they started when they first got there. However, Ralph was able to keep the boys under control by holding meetings. At the meetings, a sense of order is instilled because the boys are not allowed to speak unless they have the conch shell. "I'll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he's speaking." (p. 31) By making this rule, he gains respect from the boys and becomes for confident as a leader. Ralph uses his power to tries to make the boys better people. He shows his by building them shelters. "They talk and scream. The littuns. Even some of the others." (p. 53) Ralph is saying that the boys need the shelters because they are afraid and the shelters will help the boys feel more secure. This shows he has better knowledge of people making him a better leader than Jack who does not understand this. Jack does not realize that the boys need to feel secure and need someone in control.
is left with the decision of whether or not to drop the rock. Roger is
In order to be rescued, they had to survive. Acting like the civilians they were, they created a plan to help with their survival. Nonetheless, after a while they started to fit in with the wilderness. In the wild, animals kill other animals with no problem. The kids started acting like animals. However, instead of just killing animals, they had no problem with killing humans too. No one thought for a second that the “beast” they were killing would be someone or something else. Before murdering Simon, one of the littluns pointed at him and screamed, “Him! Him!” ( Golding 152). None of the boys stopped to comprehend why that little lun was screaming “him”. All they knew was that their goal was to kill whatever was in front of them. When they killed Piggy, no one felt pity. The novel said, “A great noise as of seagulls rose behind him” (Golding 181). Right after they killed Piggy they went on to kill Ralph. It was as if the killing was a fine act. They became savages. As Dr. Zimbardo once said, “If you put good apples into a bad situation, you’ll get bad apples” (2). In the beginning SPE, only some of the guards abused the prisoners. Though a few days later, more and more joined in. The nice guards became bad guards because they wanted to fit in with the others. These acts are examples of conformity. They all just wanted to fit in with the environment surrounding
True Portrayal of Children in Lord of the Flies & nbsp; In the novel The Lord of the Flies, by. William Golding, one can see how children react to certain situations. Children, when given the opportunity, would choose to play and have fun. rather than to do boring, hard work. Also, when children have no other adults to look up to, they turn to other children for leadership. Finally, children stray towards savagery when they are without adult authority. Therefore, Golding succeeds in effectively portraying the interests and attitudes of young children in this novel.
Loss of innocence occurs throughout the novel. Piggy realizes the change between innocence and savagery when he questions, “What are we? Human? Or animal? Or savages?” (Golding 79). Simon soon follows when he states, “What I mean is…...maybe it’s only us” (Golding 89). Both boys realize the true beast is the group and they end up paying for the uncontrolled actions of others with their lives. The drastic change between civilization on the island causes the group to become savage and feed off of violence. When Golding writes, “Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy” (Golding 202), Ralph shows his understanding that they need adult authority in their lives and Piggy was the one trying to warn him. Ralph starts to think, “The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away” (Golding 91), when the group starts to lose innocence along with civilization. The late realization adds to the theme of civilization vs savagery and drives the plot to loss of
In his novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding shows a story of boys who are trapped on an island, and must figure out how to survive. The story represents the fall of mankind, as symbolism is present throughout the entire novel. It is best seen through a historical perspective. Golding uses events from his own lifetime, the Operation Pied Paper, and Hitler’s ruling to compare it to the major events, the beginning of the story, and Jack’s personality.
Ralph is a boy that is a typical young kid, he wants to have fun, he