Lord of the Flies and Human Nature

Good and evil. These are two words that everybody has heard. One question that can arise from these two words is whether humans are essentially good or evil. The question of human nature has been a topic that even the greatest philosophers have struggled with. Even the best people still have evil thoughts which demonstrate that evil exists in all of us, however much that the trait is suppressed. Evil is not a bold line straight down the middle of what is right and this is why it is my opinion that human nature is essentially evil. The book Lord of The Flies by William Golding presents the question of human nature and allows the reader to draw their own opinions on what it truly is. The story presents the situation of various young boys stranded on an island and the slow breakdown of society that occurs afterwards. There are multiple quotes in this book that can be used to argue that human nature is essentially evil. A particular example is “Fancy thinking the beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew didn’t you? I’m part of you?”(Golding 143). The Lord of the Flies said this to Simon while he was hallucinating. In the book, The Lord of The Flies represents the devil and the fear and evil within each of the boys. Further analyzing this quote, it boils down to basically mean that everybody has evil within them. Simon was the only boy on the island who figured out that the beast was not an external threat, it was inside of them. When he tries to inform the other boys of his findings he is killed by them because they were caught in the frenzy and passion of the hunt. This allowed the beast take them over and rule their actions and caused them to act with brutality. As the story progressed, it demonstrated how the boys went from calm and civilized to savages that were completely taken over by the beast of evil. This action further shows that evil resides in all of us and progressively takes us over as we commit savage acts for the acts that we commit are