Lord Of The Flies Evil Vs Evil

Would you kill another human being? Sure, it may seem impossible, but there is the ability to do evil inside all of us. Philip Zimbardo would know. He was a professor of psychology at Stanford University who ran the “Stanford Prison Experiment”, in which he recorded the violent and sadistic tendencies of male college students in the role of prison guards. He once said that “human behavior is more influenced by things outside of us than inside… There are times when external circumstances can overwhelm us, and we do things we never thought [we could do]. If you’re not aware that this can happen, you can be seduced by evil.” This is a very prominent theme in William Golding’s novel Lord of The Flies, in which several British schoolboys are stranded on a deserted island, which then goes to chaos as their civilization devolves into a savage power struggle as some of the characters become bloodthirsty and murderous. This island is the perfect example of how circumstances can turn someone evil. Near the beginning of the book, Roger is introduced to us as a minor bully. He is shown stranding small marine animals on land and throwing small rocks near children. However, this behavior escalates, as he soon grabs a spear and goes hunting with Jack’s crew, becoming one of the main hunters. In one hunt, the boys kill a large sow to attract other boys to their side. “Roger found a lodgment for his [spear] point and began
Even the most innocent among us have the capacity to harm others, as shown in the novel and in real life. We’ve all heard various stories of children killing others for various reasons, usually because of lack of parental supervision. Under the correct circumstances, whether it be authority or the lack thereof, or any other environmental factors, we can find ourselves hurting or killing people we love. However, the fact that we need these circumstances to do so reveals that we also have the ability to do