Analysis of Lord Of The Flies Essay

Lord of the Flies by William Golding tells a demoralizing tale about a group of young boys stranded on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. Ralph, the protagonist, is the leader of the group tries to guide them to survival by trying to create a government but ends up in horrible chaos due to the sickeningly flagitious nature of mankind. Goldings novel demonstrates how human behavior declines into savagery once the restraints of civilization are removed.

Golding shows us how human nature can fall from civilized to savage, good to evil, and kind hearted to malicious. For example, the first time that they hunt for food, Jack, the antagonist of the story, finds a pig and has the perfect opportunity to kill it for food. But Jack cant bring himself to slaughter the pig and it escapes. I was choosing a place, said Jack. I was just waiting for a moment to decide where to stab him (31). This shows how Jack is still in his civilized stage and hasnt let out his beast yet. Later on, Jack finds another pig to kill for food. By now, they have already stayed on the island for a while. This time, Jack and his tribe kill the pig as brutally and remorselessly as possible. Jack was on top of the sow, stabbing downward with his knife (135). Gradually, they have settled on the island for some time now, the boys let go of rules along with their humanity little by little. This shows the contrast between a controlled society and what happens when the restraints are gone.

Lord of the Flies also symbolized how cruel we humans are underneath the standards that we set for ourselves. Golding shows how humans are self destructive and selfish. For example, at the climax of the book, all of the boys try to kill Ralph because Jack doesnt like him. This exhibits the boys turning their backs on Ralph because of the dictatorship from Jack. They hate you, Ralph. Theyre going to do you. Theyre going to hunt you tomorrow.(188) The boys distrust and have suspicion for each other: They will. Theyll try to spoil things we do. So the watchers at the gate must be careful. And then (160). Ralphs intentions were to save everyone from turning into savages as well as trying getting back home. Their relationships are slowly building up with hate and in a way, they enjoy it, knowing it could do damage to each other. In the end, the boys are very self destructive and instead of saving themselves, their goal was to kill off Ralph as brutally as they could.

I think that human beings could potentially lower themselves to the boys level. A lot of us dont intend on doing evil or hurtful things which of us think its immoral or wrong. But the nature of all humans is typically the same and some personalities are more prominent than others. Many things can trigger our beastly sides and a lot of the time its jealousy, selfishness, hatred, desperation, anger or depression that causes people to do such negative things. Environment can also greatly impact these conditions, which is why our beast shows differently in different people. I dont think saveragy is due to male violence because everyone is a little selfish. Its only natural we think about the conditions of ourselves before others simply because we want to protect ourselves. Of course, Golding exaggerated the way humans can be savage but the overall concept of human nature is the same.