Responsible For
The Loss of Civilisation In Golding’s “Lord of the Flies”
23rd February 2014
“Lord of the Flies” is a social allegory written by William Golding. It is an allegory, meaning that every actions or characters, in the book represent an event, character or action in the real life. William Golding was an English writer, who served in the navy during the WWII. This gave him an understanding of what mankind was capable of, how dark and evil it, in truth, is. Another interesting moment is that everything at the beginning foreshadows something later on only on a bigger scale. For Example- the two fires or the deaths of Percival and Piggy. In this essay, I will talk about the key points that led to the loss of civilisation. “We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?” -William Golding, Lord of the Flies
The first point, I would like to introduce is Jack’s impact on the community. Jack is a very strong individual, who believes that if you can’t solve a problem, you should just avoid it. As well as that he is the oldest and the strongest, which in theory should make him sensible, despite that, he chooses not to support rules and sensibility.
“Jack's face swam near him.
"And you shut up! Who are you, anyway? Sitting there telling people what to do. You can't hunt, you can't sing—"
"I'm chief. I was chosen."
"Why should choosing make any difference? Just giving orders that don't make any sense”
Now it is quite obvious, that Jack represents an autocratic government, where power is taken; and Ralph represents democratic governments, where power is given. Moreover, Jack understands mob mentality, and uses physical examples, of tortures to threaten other savages.
As a result of Jack’s actions, mob mentality starts to grow. Mob mentality, happens when individuals, act as a group. Therefore, they try to hide their personality, which makes them free of all laws and obligations. An example in the book would be how