Human Nature In Lord Of The Flies Essay

In the novel, Lord of the Flies written by William Golding, a group of adolescent boys traveling on a plane from Great Britain crash on a deserted island and are forced to survive on their own until they can be rescued. This book is set in the time of the Cold War, so the plane the boys traveled on had been shot down by a fighter plane. With no adults to keep them in order, they lose the guidance of civilization that they had grown up in. They must resort to how people in past centuries lived, by letting human nature control them. Human nature, as described by a web article is, “ a concept used in moral and political philosophy, religion, social contract theories and international law to denote the hypothetical conditions of what the lives
In the beginning of the book, there is a conch shell that the boys decided would be the source of power and whoever held the conch was the only one allowed to speak. This showed that they were still used to life back in Britain by creating some type of order. Ralph, one of the older boys, becomes the chief of the group. Later on, the boys learn about a “beast” somewhere on the island that terrifies them, but it turns out that there isn’t a beast. Instead, it is all from their imagination and can be considered as an evil in the boys. As the book progresses, some events in the book are seemingly disturbing and inhumane. Such as: stealing Piggy’s glasses to use for the fire and the boys becoming chaotic. One of the most aggressive boys on the island is Jack, who is not only jealous that Ralph becomes chief and does everything in his power to become the leader, but also insists that the boys focus all of their attention on hunting and some of the ways they kill animals are alarming, especially for boys at such a young age. While some characters such as Simon, are represented as comprehending characters, the other boys lose all sense of sanity. This shows that human nature will most likely drive a person insane rather than