Preview

Inherent Good and Evil in Lord of the Flies

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1571 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Inherent Good and Evil in Lord of the Flies
Inherent Good and Evil in Lord of the Flies
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding is tale of a group of young boys who become stranded on a deserted island after their plane crashes. Intertwined in this classic novel are many themes, most that relate to the inherent evil that exists in all human beings and the malicious nature of mankind. In The Lord of the Flies, Golding shows the boys' gradual transformation from being civilized, well-mannered people to savage, ritualistic beasts.
From the time that the boys land on the island, both a power struggle and the first signs of the boys' inherent evil, Piggy's mockery, occur. After blowing the conch and summoning all the boys to come for an assembly, an election is held. "I ought to be chief , said Jack with simple arrogance, because I'm chapter chorister and head boy"(Golding 22). After Ralph is elected Chief, Jack envies his position and constantly struggles for power with Ralph throughout the rest of the novel, convincing the rest of the boys to join his tribe rather than to stay with Ralph. Also, soon after the boys arrive at the island, Piggy, a physically weak and vulnerable character, is mocked and jeered at by the other boys. After trying to recount all of the liluns' names, Piggy is told to "Shut up, Fatty," by Jack Merridew. Ralph remarks by saying, "He's not Fatty. His real name's Piggy." All of the boys on the island, except for Piggy, laugh and make themselves more comfortable at Piggy's expense. "A storm of laughter arose and even the tiniest child joined in. For a moment the boys were a closed circuit of sympathy with Piggy outside."(Golding 21). The boys instinctively become more comfortable with one another after Piggy's mockery and create a bond, leaving Piggy on the outside.
While Jack and Ralph are exploring the island, they encounter a piglet which Jack supposedly attempts to kill. After gaining the courage to kill the baby pig, Jack rectifies the situation by saying "I was just waiting for a



Cited: Garbarino, Ph.D, James. Lost Boys Why Our Sonds Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1999. Ridley, Matt. Nature Via Nurture. Great Britain: Harper Collins Publishers Inc., 2003. Neubauer, M.D., Peter B,, and Alexander Neubauer. Nature 's Thumbprint. New Tork: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1990. Burnham, Terry, and Jay Phelan. Mean Genes. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing, 2000. Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. The Berkley Publishing Group,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Presently Golding

    • 875 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Piggy was order. Jack is a savage. Unfortunately these two entities cannot co-exist in harmony. They fail. All throughout the book, Piggy has been subjected to derision from just about everyone on the island. Ralph took into pleasure teasing Piggy because it was fun, and frankly, he did really care about what Piggy had to say. He threw Piggy insults. But it just didn’t matter to Ralph. Jack shared a special fierce enmity with Piggy. Piggy ruined fun with his constant whining about the conch, his specs, etc. They would butt heads. Piggy became a bore to everyone. He…

    • 875 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel, where a group of young British boys are lost on an island after their plane crash lands. Throughout the novel William Golding utilization of literary devices are in place to reveal a theme of the novel, civilization and innocent are destroyed due to the savagery of the boys', desire for power, and fear of the unknown. William Golding utilizes three important literary devices throughout the novel, symbolism, of when the conch is destroyed civilization on the island is gone, foreshadowing the deaths of the boys on the island and irony as the civilize British boys turn savages.…

    • 1088 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The book Lord of the Flies was written by William Golding after World War II. He describes about the group of boys who survive from the airplane crash. At first, all the boys have never known each other before but when the story progresses, all the characters start to show off their real personalities, and they have very different characteristics and opposing thought to each other. Golding uses the theme of human nature to show how difference the society is and the contents allude to some instinct in human nature in both good and bad way. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954), the theme of human nature is represented by the beast, violence, and religious reasoning.…

    • 118 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    All the boys deserted Ralph, Piggy, and Simon and chose Jack’s tribe. While the two tribes are separated at the opposite sides of the island they still run into each other with conflicts in hand. Jack’s tribe did not have fire so they snuck up on Ralph's tribe and attacked them while sleeping. They stole Piggy’s glasses and left them with nothing against the spine-chilling night, “We’ve had a fight with the others” (167). Another issue was with the group of hunters that made their first kill when hunting while in charge of keeping the fire going. All the hunters that stayed back decided to leave the fire and to go kill the pig. With no one there to keep the fire going, it extinguished. Meanwhile, on the beach Ralph is looking out to sea and spies a thin line of smoke move across the sea, everyone jumped for joy, but then realized there was no smoke signal to catch the ship's attention. Returning from the forest, the hunters yelling out excitedly, “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood” (69). Ralph realizes that he can not do everything and feels the heat of being…

    • 760 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After a while on the island under Ralph’s rule, the boys get tired of working all day long and decide to join Jack’s tribe. Jack has a contrasting view of life on the island and his tribe just hunts and feasts. They do not even have shelters. Ralph and Piggy are the last to switch over to Jack’s tribe and when they do, all of the boys start chanting the hunting song they made up. “The beast struggled forward, broke the ring and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the sand by the water. At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore” (Goulding 213). After the boys killed Simon, Ralph realized what he did was wrong and he left Jack’s tribe. This shows that bad people can get good people to do evil things, but the person will always be good at heart.…

    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the “normal” boys stranded on the island quickly becomes evil. Jack learns to kill when first arriving on the island he starts with pigs and ends with humans. “I was choosing a place” “I was just waiting for a moment to decide where to stab it.” On page 31 Jack, Ralph, and Simon go out to explore the island. While exploring they come across a trapped pig, Jack attempts to kill the…

    • 710 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lord of the Flies

    • 992 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Lord of the Flies” by William Golding is a dramatic novel filled with irony, fear and truth. It touches on many issues surrounding government, Christianity and democracy. The book focuses on society and through its effective use of conflict, gives us an idea what life would like without rules and civilization. The novel tells a story of a plane filled with British school boys that crashes on a deserted island during World War 2. The boys, struggling to survive, test their morals, values and beliefs. Conflict is developed throughout the novel in the form of man vs. nature, man vs. man, man vs. himself, and man vs. society.…

    • 992 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    At first, Jack’s conscience stops him from killing a pig. Later on, he is completely immersed in the sensation of killing and hunting. When Ralph, Simon, and Jack first explore the island, they encounter a wild pig that they decide to hunt. Jack was unable to kill the pig “because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood.” (31) In humiliation, Jack gives us a glimpse at his violent tendencies by stabbing a tree, claiming that he will kill the pig at the next possible opportunity. When Jack finally manages to kill a pig, his success is accompanied by repercussion. Jack pretentiously ignores his duties to tend to the fire and instead goes hunting to prove his strength. When he triumphantly returns with a dead pig, chanting, Ralph and Piggy are quick to admonish him. At this moment, Jack begins to resent Ralph. Later on in the novel, Jack, Ralph, and some other boys hunt a large boar. Even though the boar escapes, the boys work themselves into mayhem by chanting, dancing, and reenacting the hunt with Robert playing the boar. The group gets carried away and almost slaughters Robert. Jack thinks nothing of this fact and even blatantly suggests that they “use a littlun”(115) next time. This demonstrates Jack’s lack of morals. Near the end of the book, Jack feels absolutely no remorse when executing destructive and cruel actions towards anyone who dares to oppose him. When Jack and his tribe invade Ralph’s camp to steal Piggy’s glasses, they also desecrate Ralph, Piggy and the rest of Ralph’s followers. After this event, Ralph, Piggy, and Sam n’ Eric decide to travel to Castle Rock to demand the return of Piggy’s glasses and to make Jack see reason. At their arrival, Ralph bluntly accuses Jack of being a “beast and a swine and a bloody, bloody thief” (179). This sends Jack into a rage, causing him to attack Ralph “with full…

    • 1010 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    James Oliver Curwood once said, “In every man’s heart there is a devil, but we do not know the man is bad until the devil is roused.” In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, a group of schoolboys are stranded on an island after their plane crashes. Ralph becomes the leader of the boys and tries to maintain civilization on the island. In order to maintain a civilization there must be authority, hope, and intelligence. On the island, these aspects begin to break down and disintegrate quickly when human nature takes over causing civilization to fail. Consequently, many of the boys become savages and fight amongst themselves. The Lord of the Flies implies that all humans are born evil, but clearly not everyone acts in an evil manner. Golding suggests that the laws and norms of society restrain humans’ innate evil, and, if these laws are not reinforced, then man’s evil nature emerges.…

    • 1034 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Conch In Lord Of The Flies

    • 1937 Words
    • 8 Pages

    It's all fun and games and delicious pig belly until Simon stumbles in and the boys beat him to death.  Later, Ralph and Piggy convince themselves that it never happened.  When Jack's team steals Piggy's glasses, he and Ralph clean up and head over to get them back.  Ralph announces that he's calling an assembly, but it doesn't happen. Instead, Piggy falls off a cliff and dies.  Ralph is totally alone. He feels worse when Samneric sneak off to tell him that Jack's planning to kill him.  A huge fight involving sharpened sticks and fire.  Ralph is pretty convinced he's going to die, when suddenly a naval officer shows up to ask who's in charge.  When the officer asks who's boss, Ralph answers loudly that he is. He stares at the officer dumbly, hardly able to comprehend that the rescuers have finally arrived.  Ralph begins to cry, sobbing for the first time about Simon, about Piggy, about "the end of innocence, [and about] the darkness of man's heart. Jack For Jack, the island is like the best summer vacation ever. He gets to swear, play war games, hunt things, and paint his face—all without any grownups around to send him to his room for accidentally killing the neighbours. Like Ralph, Jack is charismatic and inclined to leadership. Unlike Ralph, he gets off on power and abuses his position above others. Jack is ugly. Well, according the narrator he is: he's "tall, thin,…

    • 1937 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Good versus evil is a common concept used often in storytelling, writing, plays, movies, etc. the basic story line is commonly used and developed to mold different ideals, meanings, and lessons into different types of works. William Golding’s novel the Lord of the Flies falls into this category of works with the good versus evil story line. Boiling the novel down to its most basic state it is a story of a group of boys. They all start out in a state of innocence, then as they adjust to their new surroundings after being stranded on a deserted island with no adults; they chose whether or not they turn from their innocence. When the boys turn from their innocence they go from being good to evil, or as the interpretation of this novel is commonly perceived the boys go from being civilized boys to savages. It is in this sense that civilized and good can be used interchangeably for this interpretation, and the same for evil and savagery. Golding puts an interesting twist to this basic plot right in the beginning of the story. Golding takes the story from just a simple tale of good versus evil to good versus evil with competing ideas of intelligence. Right in the beginning of the novel we see these ideas of intelligence take form. As the story builds the differences in the types of intelligence grows and becomes more distinct. From there the competition of good versus evil begins.…

    • 1948 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Most individuals grow up taught what is considered right from wrong. These are ideals that are instilled in people from a young age by the world's civilization, in hopes that when they in certain situations these individuals will make the correct decision. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the boys on the island are faced with many challenges, one of them being a battle of civilization and savagery. The problem of remembering what was taught to the boys while living amongst civilization is more pronounced in some characters than others. Golding’s novel proves to the reader that man is inherently evil. By Goulding presenting the idea of man’s innate evil, the reader can see the change of civil to savage in the characters Jack, Ralph, Piggy, and Roger.…

    • 1640 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout history is has always been debated rather or not humans are inherently good or inherently bad. It was once thought that people were born either bad or born good. I don’t not think this is true I believer that people are bad because of murder and the mob mentality that develops in a crowd.…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Goodness shall always prevail over evil. Evil has never had the last say in this world, goodness has and always will, because light shall shine through darken times.Therefore, in the fictional novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Ralph is someone whom refused to give into the evil temptations on the island. He governs his group and treats them with equality. Another person who is the definition of good is Simon, he is the Christ figure of the boys he is the one who understands the truth and is always kind trying to find a way to help the boys. Then he is also the only one who understands that the beastie is Not an actually thing but its only themselves.…

    • 122 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    What happens to people without the order of society? Golding explores how the trait of evil is a trait that humans are born with.He proves that evil is an inborn trait of mankind in Lord of the Flies. The author does so by taking a group of boys and putting them in an environment where they can portray traits found in human nature without society’s rules affecting how they act. He shows that all humans are born with good or evil, which is triggered by specific events to bring it out. Through the characters it is proven that humans are born with evil in them. Jack, Roger, and the Lord of the Flies each portray the quality of evil throughout the novel, Lord of the Flies.…

    • 231 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays