Lord of the Flies - Loss of Humanity
Humanity and how easily it can be lost
Humanity is fragile and can shatter under the pressure of isolation and lack of basic infrastructure. Everyone needs a certain amount of security in their environment; it is generally thought that no matter what your surroundings, you are who you are. Although in reality without that security you derive from your settings people have a hard time retaining their normal, stable mindset. The humane, logical side of everyone can be manipulated by the influence of their environment, the order and structure, or lack thereof, which surrounds them and the absence of an authoritative presence in their day to day lives.
Whether you have the constant and stable environment you are accustomed to can determine whether or not you keep your sanity. The more severe a change in your surroundings, the more severe a change you will see in yourself. During Lord of the Flies Golding had, in not so many words, established the idea that the island would change each boy in a different way at certain turning points in the novel where the fact that the children had no stable environment affectively diminished their sane, lucid minds. The boys were thrown into a place where they had to adapt and grow into something they wouldn’t have otherwise become had they not been stranded on the island without all of the things they were familiar and comfortable with. Certain factors in an environment can distort ones behaviour along with their rational way of thinking.
When people have to face a change in structure and order they tend to lash out and then anarchy ensues. “The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away.” (Golding, 98) This is a part in the book where the order that was created by the assemblies and the conch began to crumble and decay which was the opening for the lack of humanity seen in many of the hunters in the later chapters, because Jack was unhappy with how things were being run and decided to divide the group which
Humanity is fragile and can shatter under the pressure of isolation and lack of basic infrastructure. Everyone needs a certain amount of security in their environment; it is generally thought that no matter what your surroundings, you are who you are. Although in reality without that security you derive from your settings people have a hard time retaining their normal, stable mindset. The humane, logical side of everyone can be manipulated by the influence of their environment, the order and structure, or lack thereof, which surrounds them and the absence of an authoritative presence in their day to day lives.
Whether you have the constant and stable environment you are accustomed to can determine whether or not you keep your sanity. The more severe a change in your surroundings, the more severe a change you will see in yourself. During Lord of the Flies Golding had, in not so many words, established the idea that the island would change each boy in a different way at certain turning points in the novel where the fact that the children had no stable environment affectively diminished their sane, lucid minds. The boys were thrown into a place where they had to adapt and grow into something they wouldn’t have otherwise become had they not been stranded on the island without all of the things they were familiar and comfortable with. Certain factors in an environment can distort ones behaviour along with their rational way of thinking.
When people have to face a change in structure and order they tend to lash out and then anarchy ensues. “The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away.” (Golding, 98) This is a part in the book where the order that was created by the assemblies and the conch began to crumble and decay which was the opening for the lack of humanity seen in many of the hunters in the later chapters, because Jack was unhappy with how things were being run and decided to divide the group which