Identify an important theme/idea within your text and discuss how it is shown.
One of the big questions raised by Lord of the Flies is whether the boys in their primitive actions are reverting to a inferior state of life, or whether they are driven to their natural and rightful states. If well-brought up British boys become violent savages when left without supervision, maybe people really are just violent savages, covered up in clothes and caps. But big questions aside, primitively in Lord of the Flies means hunting, the desire for food, the desire for power, bloodlust, violence, sadism, and a general inability to distinguish between man and beast.
The loss of innocence is a major theme in Lord of the Flies. The boys stranded on the island at just the age (between six and twelve, roughly) to leave the idealism of youth and face the actuality of the real world. And what better place to do so than an uninhabited island free of rules, restrictions, and adults? Because of their circumstance, the boys leave behind not only youth, but civilization, and the reality they face is not one of adults, but one of untamed human nature. The novel ends with its main character, Ralph, weeping for “the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart.” …show more content…
Golding seems to be saying that yes, this is the case. The ethical nature of any society depends ultimately on the morality of its individual members, and in Lord of the Flies, humans are basically corrupt and inherently evil. It seems that rules and order are the only boundaries keeping people from their true, violent natures. As soon as you take those people and put them outside of a system with punishments and consequences, they will revert to primitive attitudes and actions, and destroy themselves in the process. Man needs the structure provided by