Preview

Responsibility In Lord Of The Flies

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2519 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Responsibility In Lord Of The Flies
Responsibility In today's society, human beings must learn to take care of something or someone,and that is a responsibility that they must uphold. In both the Lord of the Flies, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the responsibility of the boys is to manage by themselves without any adults to take care of them. The events in William Golding's book Lord of the Flies can be easily compared to those of Mark Twain's book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, because the main characters both have major responsibilities. There are two responsibilities that the characters came in contact with, taking care of people,including themselves, and being responsible enough to do the right thing. Thus, responsibility helps individuals to evolve and …show more content…
For team work is a very important element if you want something to get done. The boys on the island, in Lord of the Flies, work together to get things accomplished. Some of these things include making shelters, building and keeping a fire going, and creating speared weapons. Each boy has a responsibility to take on, and if they do not fulfill it, they might end up on the island forever. The boys are placed in different groups to get the different jobs done. An example of a group established from the beginning is the "hunters", who arrived on the island as choir boys. "The choir belongs to you, of course.' ‘They could be the army -' ‘Or hunters -'" (Golding 19) The jobs that had to be completed were finished a lot quicker because of the different groups. It was each group's responsibility to accomplish their tasks. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck and Jim must also work together and take care of each other as they travel down the river. Huck, especially, must take special care of Jim, because he is a runaway black man who is in grave danger. The reason he is in so much danger, is because in the 1800s most niggers were slaves, and town folk could make money off of them by selling them, if they got their hands on them. Huck always made sure that Jim was hidden whenever Huck had to leave the raft, because he felt it was his responsibility to make sure Jim was never …show more content…
This is why running away was the right thing for Huck to do. Ralph, Piggy, and Huck all had moral responsibilities to uphold, and they all listened to what their consciences were saying. They stuck to their instincts, and turned out to be better men because of it. Ralph knew from the start that Jack's intents were not good, while Piggy knew that Ralph would be a better leader, without any help from Jack. Huck trusted his instincts and told Miss. Mary everything that was going on in her household, and he saved the day thanks to his morals. He also knew it was time to move on from his old life, and start a new one, that did not involve him getting beaten on. Therefore, even though these boys were quite young when they went through these situations, it shows that moral responsibilities are learned,and put to use at an early age. All of the characters went through a lot in their books, but they learned even more about life by doing so. They evolved and matured because of all the responsibilities that they took on. In the Lord of the Flies, the characters had lots of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Tyler Rogers Boland Honors English II 2/2/15 Character Motivation Piggy is motivated by the desire, or envy, to create a society like the one they previously lived in. Piggy himself may not have been able to accomplish his goal of creating a society like the one they used to live in, but with the help of Ralph, together they had some sort of influence over the boys.…

    • 303 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lord of the Flies is a novel written by William Golding about a group of british boys that find themselves stranded without adult supervision on a tropical island. Their plane crashed and they were dragged out to sea, leaving the boys stranded on an unfamiliar island. Because of the atom bomb’s devastation, it’s likely that no one knows the boy's whereabouts.The group is roughly divided into the “littlun” boys around the age of six, and the “biguns,” who are between the ages of ten to twelve. There are multiple different philosophies referring to Human Nature. The Lord of the Flies depicts the philosophy that humans aren't born good or bad, but the people they become is dependent on their experiences. Both sides are shown in this story, some leading to better roads and some losing innocence.…

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Satire in Huck Finn

    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The journey taken by two people down a river, is rarely thought of as anything more than just an adventure. However, Mark Twain uses his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, to explore and poke fun of many problems facing American society. Huck, the main character, is considered an uneducated boy who is constantly under pressure to conform to the civilized aspects of society. Jim, who accompanies Huck, is a runaway slave seeking freedom from the world that has denied it to him for so long. In his novel, Twain uses satire to demonstrate many of civilizations problems. In the beginning of the story, Huck sneaks away from his home to play with Tom Sawyer and his friends. The boys start a gang and decide that one of the things they will do is kidnap people, and hold them for ransom. The boys quickly discover that they cannot ransom anyone because they don't know what ransom means. Tom has a theory as to the meaning of the word, But per'aps if we keep them till they're ransomed, it means that we keep them till they're dead.(12) Without any doubts, all of the boys agree with this meaning of the word. In this segment of the novel, Twain uses satire to demonstrate that even though something may be truly wrong, if civilization or society adopts it to be true, then it is believed to be true. Twain may be specifically using the issue of slavery as his target, in this instance of satire. During the time period in which The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was written, religion was as much a part of civilization, as was an education. Religion is one of the key victims of Twain's satire throughout the novel. This satire is no more apparent then when Huck's guardian, the Widow Douglas, preaches to him about Moses. Huck didn't think very much of her lecture; Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see...(3) Twain uses Huck to exhibit his objection to the blind faith that civilized society places towards religion.…

    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck does not want to go live with his father because his father is a drunk who beat him almost every night after having him locked up in a cabin all day. Huck has the urge to think for himself and not follow any rules because of this. Huck yearns to be let out of this life his father has trapped him in, resulting in his escape shortly after. He fakes his death by killing a pig, leaving the pigs blood all around the house for his father to find. When he escapes, he hides out on Jackson’s Island and watches the townspeople search for his body. Shortly after, one of Miss Watson’s slaves, Jim, appears on the island along with him. Though Huck was afraid of the…

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck as Hero

    • 1264 Words
    • 6 Pages

    From the beginning of the novel, one can observe the inner strength of young Huck. Huck was a "beaten and bruised" child, coming from a family where the only guidance that the boy had was from his drunken Pap (Dynos 13). Due to a lack of leadership to follow in, Huck was forced to raise himself. It takes a strong character to raise oneself (18), and Huck did one hell of a job doing it. Children gain much of who they are from how they were brought up, during this critical period children can be made or broken. Huck is the exception, he had nobody to look up to or imitate, instead he did as what he felt the right thing to do. Huck didn't know everything there was to learn, but he did try. If he did not know what or why something happens, he…

    • 1264 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ralph has strong commitment to equality and justice. c) In the Fifth Chapter, the Jack starts arguing and mocking Piggy, when Ralph shouts: “The rules!You’re breaking the rules! The rules are the only thing we’ve got!”…

    • 1488 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck Finn and Jim Throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain illustrates the bond formed between Huck, the young white protagonist, and Jim, Huck's black companion. While Huck and Jim travel down the river it becomes apparent that Jim is more of a father figure to Huck than his biological father. Pap teaches the virtues of a life not worth living, while Jim gives Huck the proper fatherly support, compassion, and knowledge for Huck to become a man. Although Huck and Jim come from separate racial backgrounds their time together allows them to surpass their ethnic segregation and become true friends, and family.…

    • 426 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Both Huck and Jim are forced to flee for freedoms from oppressions caused by capitalistic society. Jim’s situation is by far the most obvious. Slavery was the product of the most extremist version of capitalism and free market trading. The markets being so free that Jim, a human being has a possibility of being sold at any moment as if he was any other type of product. When Jim hears word that he may be sold down river he is forced into flight. In the free market economy without regulations that was predominate in the South Jim is left with no freedom. Huck’s forced flight is from the oppression of his drunk and impoverished father. While Pap might seem a gruff and evil man, his unsavory characteristics are the product of lifelong poverty as a result of capitalism. Pap was illiterate and unschooled as a boy and grew up poor. When he grew older his wife died after giving birth to Huck. In no stretch of the…

    • 914 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the first third of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the southern 13 year-old boy protagonist Huck is stuck in a very peculiar situation; he’s a runaway hiding with an african-american ex-slave, along with Tom Sawyer- Huck’s friend of the past, who joins in the last third of the book. Before Tom’s reentrance into the story, Huck was on the path to moral maturity, progressively gaining empathy and new understanding of the world. Upon becoming a runaway, Huck was fed up with his life at home and opted to fake his death to avoid his drunken father and decides not to put his trust in him any longer because Huck describes when, “Pap took the jug, and said he had enough whiskey there for two drunks and one delirium tremens [...] That was his world” (Twain 36). The life that his father was living, Huck decides, isn’t the one for him. The beginning of Huck’s moral development was his ability to distinguish the difference between good and bad, and decided that his father wasn’t one of the good ones. This gives him experience and becomes that much wiser- the most he had ever been about anything. Next on Huck’s journey, he floats farther away from home along the Mississippi River with his friend Jim, the ex-slave, as they encounter the Duke and the King. Huck gets caught up in their sneaky scams; to cheat people out of their money at fake performances they advertised and convinced people to go to. This was the second time Huck’s moral judgement was put to the test. Since the beginning, he recognized that what they were doing was in fact wrong, and felt guilty about scamming people out of their money. At this point, Huck knows enough to, “make up [his] mind that these liars warn’t no kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds” (125). In a later chapter, while the King and Duke are being publicly humiliated, Huck says that he “was so sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like [he] couldn’t ever feel any hardness against them any more in the…

    • 1389 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Moral Growth in Huck Finn

    • 366 Words
    • 2 Pages

    al Moral Growth In the classic American literature novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, by Mark Twain, the main character Huck experiences various occasions of moral growth. Huck matures throughout the story; he learns right from wrong and he learns integrity. The necessity of personal survival in a dangerous environment forces him to make adult decisions and live with the consequences.…

    • 366 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Courage, Loyalty and the Human Spirit “Lord of the Flies” is a thought-provoking novel, written by Nobel Prize winning author William Golding; about a group of British schoolboys who get stuck on an isolated island, and try to fend for and manage themselves; with catastrophic results. As the tale progresses, it becomes very clear that courage, loyalty and the human spirit are much more significant than human brutality as themes in the novel. In the face of human brutality, many characters show courage; acting appropriately and for the good of the group. Loyalty is a very important theme in the novel, simply because, without it, the majority of the characters would not have survived or worked together in the face of brutality and treachery. The theme of the human spirit is portrayed countless times, as the boys fight to overcome human brutality and be rescued.…

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In most situations, Huck was able to make decisions based on his perception of right and wrong, and learns life lessons in doing so. No matter what trial or tribulation he encountered, Huck was grateful he was not subject to Papp’s abuse. When he was caught trying to be a girl by Judith Loftus, he learned compassion when she still accepted him in her home. Huck didn’t want to feel accountable for the death of the murders on the abandoned ship, so he did what he felt was necessary, and took on the responsibility of trying to see they were rescued. Stating, “…wishing I knowed who shot the man and what they done it for,” Huck sought and found meaning in most circumstances and understands every choice has its consequence (133).…

    • 389 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    As Ralph and Jack take charge in the book, they have similarities and differences with their tactics of using power. Early in the novel, Golding demonstrates their differences, “Ralph turned to him. ‘You’re no good on a job like this.’ ‘All the same-‘ ‘We don’t want you’ said Jack, flatly. ‘Three’s enough.’”(24, Golding). While Ralph and Jack both assert authority over Piggy, Ralph at least tries to explain his reasoning, whereas Jack brings personal insult to the matter. This could be Golding trying to shower the reader a mark of a good leader, in Ralph, and a bad leader, in Jack. In chapter one, the author writes “ ‘Jacks in charge of the choir. They can be-what do you want them to be?’ ‘Hunters’ Jack and Ralph smiled at each other with shy liking. The rest began to talk eagerly” (23, Golding). Ralph and Jack are made similar by their desire for power, but differ in their treatment of that power. Ralph is happy to use it towards the others liking, but Jack will later want it all for himself. In the beginning of the novel, Ralph declares that who ever is holding the conch shell will have the right to speak. Later,…

    • 1060 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck at times shows his morality by making the “right” decisions in many circumstances, but when following Tom in Tom’s plans, Huck caves into Tom’s devious, immoral, adventure seeking ideas that causes trouble for the Phelps as well as himself. Huck possesses a desire to follow his heart to help Jim as he leaves for Silas Phelps’ farm, and the basis of that wish to be moral persists and influences a few of his actions in dealing with the Phelps: “Laws knows I wanted to go, bad enough, to see about Tom, and all was intending to go, but after that, I wouldn’t a went, not for kingdoms” (350). Huck’s basis of morality still exists even through Tom’s influence. Huck chooses the right decision to stay and keep Aunt Sally from becoming even more sorrowful. Though he knows that Tom is waiting for him, Huck stays not for the benefit of himself, but for Aunt Sally, because he sympathizes for her. Huck’s moral development progresses when not in the presence of Tom’s manipulative words, but when he is around Tom’s influence, Huck gives into falling under the impression of Tom’s ideals and ridiculous, immoral schemes. Huck considers Tom an authoritative, knowledgeable figure and follows Tom in many of Tom’s unreasonable, unethical acts regardless of the negative circumstances Huck knows will undergo: “’Now you’re talking!’ I says; ‘Your head gets leveler and leveler all the time, Tom Sawyer,’ I says. ‘Picks is the thing, moral or no moral; and as for me, I don’t care shucks for the morality of it nohow” (307). Tom finds it very important that they make Jim’s escape from bondage an adventure, hence Tom and Huck must steal, life, and cheat to make their somewhat simple situation adventuresome. Huck steals the Phelps’s family’s picks, and disregards the fact that what he is doing is immoral because he is lost in the…

    • 1014 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Huck Finn Racist?

    • 1053 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Ashu 2 was merely part of the vernacular of Southern culture during the 1800's not a cacophonous wordand not strictly a racist term. It further illustrates that twain recognized the evils of racism.As shown in the drunken charter of pap. Huck Finn was abused by his father allthroughout his childhood. He lived in constant fear of his surroundings (occasionally even beingincarcerated in a shed for days) and didn't lead an exactly normal life. When he finally decides toget out of his predicament and stages his own death, he meets up with Jim on Jackson's island.When Huck first meets Jim on the Island he makes a monumental decision, not to turn Jim in.Two opposing forces, the force of society and the force of his personal conscience confront him.He is forced to decide whether turning Jim in is the right thing to do. The law tells him that hemust betray his friend, but his conscience tells him to question this law. He chooses, as he doesmany other times in the book, to continue helping Jim to obtain his freedom despite the fact thatit seems immoral to him. Many times, throughout the novel, Huck comes very close torationalizing Jim's slavery. However, he is never able to see a reason why this man, who has become one of his only friends, should be a slave. Through this internal struggle, Twainexpresses his opinions of the absurdity of slavery and the importance of following one's personalconscience before the laws of society. By the end of the novel, Huck and the reader have come tounderstand that Jim is not someone's property and an inferior man, but an equal. Which is ironic because in the beginning of the book Huck thought blacks were almost stupid-like “(p. 6) Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark…Jim was ruined” But, in the end Huck realizes he could never betray his friend, Jim, who has risked his life for Huck and who has become the closest friend Huck ever had and will ever have.Another time Twain demonstrates the immorality of slavery is during…

    • 1053 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays