Evil In "Macbeth" and "Lord of the Flies"

Evil, depraved, corrupt and malicious are all words that describe something that is morally wrong or bad. "Macbeth" by Shakespeare and "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding both display how man's sinful nature can be revealed through thoughts and actions. The underlying evil within man is the most prominent theme of both play and novel. The authors show their belief that if everybody revealed their true natures, the world would tear itself apart. At first, Macbeth was an innocent person who gradually turned into a malicious tyrant and the harmless, well-brought up English boys turned into savages when left without supervision. Does that mean even the most exemplary people in society have a side of savagery to them? The question is whether the characters in their primitive actions are reverting to a somehow inferior state of life, or whether they are driven to their natural and rightful states. What is it that leads someone to commit evil acts? Fear, ambition, desire and personal power all tend to delude the mind of causing evil acts and one can become blind to the consequeces of their actions. “Evil” is a place with many unopened doors and untraveled, darkened corridors of the mind — something that's out of control. The problem of evil can be explored by analyzing different character types in "Macbeth" and "Lord of the Flies." As you will see, any normal person can sucumb to evil under the right conditionss; some more than others but everyone has it in them.

"Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Bash him in!'" The pig hunts are used throughout “Lord of the Flies” to show the gradual inheritance of the evil within the boys. One of he main characters who depicts the idea of savagery is Jack who is charismatic and unlike Ralph, he gets off on power and abuses his position above others. Ralph is keen on getting home as soon as possible and says, “Look, as much fun as it would be to run around killing each other, let’s build a signal fire already and get off this island.”