Comparing Hobbes And Rousseau In Lord Of The Flies

For centuries, the natural state of man has been a major theme in political philosophy. and two major contributors to this philosophy are Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques Rousseau. Their theories both appeals to the state of nature as a phase before the formation of a political society, however, their views of a man’s state of nature are quite different. With that being said, many will read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and will see what Golding’s view of man’s state of nature is like, but disagree with each other if it takes the side of Hobbes or Rousseau. To help identify which comparison is more well suited, one should think to himself if humans are innately good or bad people. Rousseau believed that in order for a society to be justified,
it must best affirm the individual freedom of all citizens. That the citizens are naturally “good” and they will remain like that as long as they do not get corrupted by civilization. I for one believe that in Golding’s Lord of the flies, the young children were naturally and innately good kids, however, what corrupted them was civilization. In the beginning of the novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of young boys are stranded on an island after their plane crashes.
Without having any parents on the island, the kids are now living their dream — or nightmare — of living within a society where they can decide if and how to enforce rules and laws on their own. As the novel progresses, we see the nature of the boys to begin to change, and Golding uses this in attempting to expose the nature of man, which includes the good, the bad, and those in between. Golding uses different objects to help symbolize how the boys evolved from being civilized and friendly to becoming evil savages due to the corruption in their government. These symbols include the conch shell, Piggy’s eyeglasses, the fire, the “beast”, and the Lord of the
Flies. The different symbols used by Golding points the characters in one of two directions: civilization or savagery. The conch shell becomes a powerful symbol of civilization and order in the novel. The shell was used to bring the boys together and the shell helps to enforce rules during the meetings; "He can hold it when he's speaking” (Golding 33). This shows a sense of civility due to the fact that any one person may speak as long as he is in possession with the shell. The signal fire is a representation of life for the boys and it is a test of their connection with civilization. A watch system was created to ensure that the fire stays lit at all times in case someone may see it from afar. As long as the fire stays lit, it shows their desire to be rescued and to return to society. "There was a ship. Out there. You said you'd keep the fire going and you let it out!" (Golding 70). Ralph was angered and said this to Jack and is an example when the boys still had some sort of civilization inside of them. Piggy’s glasses are used to make the fire, which can portray the intelligence of the children. The group of those children who became savages led by Jack, however, steal the glasses, with that the chance to continue making the signal fire. Jack was then indeed in control of his own government and persuaded most of those who still believed in Ralph to join his group. The island’s civilization between the boys completely dissipated, as the boys descended into savagery.
The conch shell lost its power and influence among the children and we see that in chapter five; Ralph was afraid to blow the shell knowing that it will be ignored and that any vestige of order it had left would disintegrate. Later in the novel, Roger rolls a boulder onto Piggy, resulting in the death of Piggy and the crushing of the conch shell. This scene signifies the demise of the civilized instinct amongst almost every boy on the island. The “beast” is used to show who the boys evolved into. The littluns tried to express their emotions of how they had seen a monster which then scared everyone on the island, however, the monster the littluns have feared was actually themselves. The group of boys became that monster after trying to become a group of civilized people. In the beginning of the novel, the boys did not want to start killing each other, but as the novel unfolds, we saw a number of deaths which resulted due to the savagery of the boys. When it comes to the death of Simon, the Lord of the Flies — the pig head — becomes both a sign of the beast and a symbol of evil. “Well then, you’d better run off and play with the others. They think you're batty… You knew, didn't you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?” (Golding 143) The lifeless Lord of the Flies was telling this to Simon, laughing at him. Simon
knew that he was speaking to a dead pig head, but he still had this conversation — maybe with a part of himself. Everyone has a savage part and in this scene it is seen how Simon’s savage part wanted to come out when he was explaining how he should go “play” with the others. The group of Jack’s “civilized” children were the complete opposite of civilized. Their government became corrupt and all hell broke loose on the island. The monster was living inside of Simon, and for the other boys that joined Jack, their monster side has already taken over. Rousseau argues that “Honor without virtue, reason without wisdom, and pleasure without happiness. It suffices for me to have proved that this is not the original state of man, and that this is only the spirit of society and the inequality it engenders, which thus transform and corrupt all our natural inclinations” (Rousseau 57). With this quote, Rousseau simply justifies the themes and morals presented in the novel. Rousseau had the belief that men in a state of nature are free and equal. In other words, men are “noble savages.” However, “noble savages” are prone from being corrupted by civilization. Government in a civilization should be used to bring a group of people into harmony and unite them under the “general will.” But if that government does not act with the general will, that is when a person’s innate good nature will manifest into savagery. In the novel, Ralph was the leader of the boys, however, he was overthrown by Jack. Jack only had the intentions of his own in mind, which resulted in him becoming the savage. That does not mean that Jack was an idiot; on the contrary, Jack was rather smart and knew what he was doing. Through the continuous manipulating, Jack had the group of boys share his view of the way things should be and had the whole group manifest into savages. The civilization basically destroyed the boys. “The passions that incline men to peace are: fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them” (Hobbes 185). Rousseau believes that humans are naturally good at heart, however, Hobbes disagrees and this quote helps prove so. Hobbes has the inclination that the natural state of man is not good at all, as a matter of fact, it is brutal and miserable. The belief of his is that humans are free to do what they want, so a government is imperative, because it is reasonable to believe that anyone can become an enemy to somebody else. However, in The Lord of the Flies, there is no tendency to believe that any of the boys were naturally evil. As it happens to be, the morale of the boys degenerated, and due to the corruption of their government, the boys evolved into monsters.