Hope And Perseverance In Lord Of The Flies

In William Faulkner’s acceptance speech for Nobel prize in literature, he describes what the role of a writer is when mankind confronts its fear of its annihilation. He firmly believes that a writer’s duty is to remind mankind of its values, and give it hope that it will prevail through hardships. In The Lord of The Flies, the author William Golding also seems to support Faulkner’s beliefs. While Golding shows the hardships that face mankind, primarily ourselves, he gives mankind hope in that we will learn from our mistakes and survive. To this day, both Faulkner’s and Golding’s ideas are relevant today to looking at mankind and society as a whole. In The Lord of The Flies, Golding has illustrated Faulkner’s idea of reminding the reader of hope and perseverance. In the book, the children on island eventually forget about
the need to maintain order and be proper.
Instead, the bad temptations in their minds were brought out. This lead to hardships for these children, including some deaths. But despite all of this, they were rescued. Some argue that the book doesn’t give hope even though they survived. But the children in the end begin to see their own mistakes. Like after a war, these children will realize and see the effects of their false morals. This is what provides hope to the reader that humans will survive despite our mistakes. That in the end we will triumph through disasters. Golding in particular shows triumph in The Lord of The Flies through Ralph. Golding centers his story around Ralph, who is one of the only children who follows morally correct beliefs. He values maintaining order in their society so that they will be rescued. As the story progresses he becomes
one of the last of the children to retain these values. Other children have become savage and primitive. As he runs away from the hunters, he is saved by a naval officer, who saw smoke. All the children then cry as they recall home and see what they’ve become over the course of several months. Incidentally, it was not Ralph who lit the fire. But nevertheless, Golding ends the book positively because Ralph survived all of these ordeals. Had Ralph not fought for his life hard and passionately until the very end, he might have not survived. This supports Faulkner’s strive to remind man of “the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.”(William Faulkner, Nobel Prize acceptance speech) Ralph’s survival is especially positive because both Piggy and Simon, who thought like him, were killed. His existence is symbolic of humanity’s morality surviving as well. Macrocosmically, Ralph’s survival symbolizes that human conscience will always eventually overrule our temptation. Today, we also face temptation on a daily basis. Many people are obsessed with technology and sports. They put aside what they need to do and absorb themselves in their phones or games. We also face bullies that mirror Jack and Roger in their personalities. When we look at deeper meanings behind Golding’s work like this, it can be seen to be very relevant today. Faulkner’s beliefs are also still important today. His ideas of a writer's role in society were formed in a very important time period succeeding World War II. His wisdom from that time is worth considering after one imagines what he has seen and experienced. He believes that writing is what motivates us and gives us hope when we need it. A significant amount of time has passed since he said those words, but I believe that writings that do this are extremely useful for us because they can affirm our morals and ideals in life. After reading Golding’s book one can acknowledge that morals are one of the most important things in our society. But once they are forgotten chaos ensues. By reading The Lord of The Flies and books like it, we can maybe define our own values. I believe that both Faulkner and Goulding would agree that one can learn lots from books, and that its a writer’s and poet’s job to write books so that there is wisdom to be gained, not just meaningless words. Golding’s novel provides critical insight into conflicts in society. He also shows similarities between the children’s violence and real world wars. Today we can still apply what he tells us in his novel. Individually we are all different, but as in the novel, we are drawn towards similar things: the greater good or temptation. This means that we should all be aware of what are temptations are, as well as what is really right. And whenever you make a mistake, realize that there is wisdom be gained from it.