Lord of the Flies

The Unchanging Malevolence of Humankind “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” Jeremiah 17:9 depicted the human heart as a thing of deceit over 2,000 years ago. Fast forward to today, is this debatable topic still relevant? William Golding explores the topic through his novel Lord of the Flies. In the novel, a group of young boys from England crash land on an uninhabited island. The boys must try to get rescued according to the voted-in leader, Ralph. But another boy, Jack, thinks surviving is a more prevalent issue. After weeks of bickering, disasters, and pig hunts, some of the boys have lost all sense of civilization, becoming savages. This leads to the death of two boys, Piggy and Simon, and the loss of another little boy. The remaining group, apart from Ralph, has turned savage. They eventually get rescued, having to return to a civilized social order. Throughout the novel, the boys discover their inner morals without the pressure of humanity. Golding utilizes the characterization of Jack and the symbol of the Lord of the Flies to divulge that though it is concealed by the rules and regulations society bestows upon man, the evil lies within.
The layers of civilization’s expectations are tarnished by the savagery of instability found in nature as exemplified through the portrayal of Jack. When the boys first land on the island, Jack attempts to hunt and kill a pig. This violent act is something so unfamiliar and inhumane to him, he cannot bring himself to kill the pig. “‘I was going to,’ said Jack. He was ahead of them and they could not see his face. ‘I was choosing a place. Next time—’” (Golding 31). As a modern and functioning nation grows and advances, paradigms about certain issues like killing become a mindset, where it is wrong to do so. There are laws in place to prevent that mindset from changing. However, imagine if those rules weren’t implemented. The hope of humanity’s standards begins to fade as one is left alone