Lord of The Flies
The Evolution of Innate Evil of Mankind
In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, one of the most important aspects of the novel is that humans are essentially barbaric, if not downright evil. Lord of the Flies is not simply a book about outward conflict between individuals. It is, rather, a novel about one 's inner being. When the formerly-civilized British boys of Golding 's novel are stranded on a desert island and must fight for survival, many of them surrender to the "Beast." The stranded boys begin by establishing a society similar to the one they left behind in England. Soon their society has degenerated into rival clans ruled by fear and violence. William Golding 's Lord of the Flies allegorically shows the good and evil that co-exists in every human being. Each character and symbol renders this possible by what it represents. Ralph and Jack allegorically represent opposing political forces: Jack as the dictator and Ralph as the exemplar of a democratic leader. The island represents the archetypal garden and the conch shell represents power. Golding uses British schoolboys to show progressive degeneration and to prove that a little bit of evil exists in all of us; each of these symbols aid in proving that we all have some evil in our hearts. Golding’s Lord of the Flies is an allegory which teaches that man is innately evil and over time, this evil will emerge.
Golding refers to an image in the readers mind as he ventures out to imitate how savagery can take over if there is no civilization intact. During many parts of the novel, innocence is also used to show that anything can happen to the ones that we presume to be above suspicion, even in the gentlest of hearts a seed of evil exists. Ralph states that, “We 've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we 're not savages. We 're English, and the English are best at everything,” (Golding 40). One of the many symbols that Golding uses into the novel is the conch. The conch was nothing but a mere
In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, one of the most important aspects of the novel is that humans are essentially barbaric, if not downright evil. Lord of the Flies is not simply a book about outward conflict between individuals. It is, rather, a novel about one 's inner being. When the formerly-civilized British boys of Golding 's novel are stranded on a desert island and must fight for survival, many of them surrender to the "Beast." The stranded boys begin by establishing a society similar to the one they left behind in England. Soon their society has degenerated into rival clans ruled by fear and violence. William Golding 's Lord of the Flies allegorically shows the good and evil that co-exists in every human being. Each character and symbol renders this possible by what it represents. Ralph and Jack allegorically represent opposing political forces: Jack as the dictator and Ralph as the exemplar of a democratic leader. The island represents the archetypal garden and the conch shell represents power. Golding uses British schoolboys to show progressive degeneration and to prove that a little bit of evil exists in all of us; each of these symbols aid in proving that we all have some evil in our hearts. Golding’s Lord of the Flies is an allegory which teaches that man is innately evil and over time, this evil will emerge.
Golding refers to an image in the readers mind as he ventures out to imitate how savagery can take over if there is no civilization intact. During many parts of the novel, innocence is also used to show that anything can happen to the ones that we presume to be above suspicion, even in the gentlest of hearts a seed of evil exists. Ralph states that, “We 've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we 're not savages. We 're English, and the English are best at everything,” (Golding 40). One of the many symbols that Golding uses into the novel is the conch. The conch was nothing but a mere
Cited: Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1958.