Lord Of The Flies External Conflict

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Oftentimes in society, we take many things for granted. Many things we may not even notice. We take for granted the safety of the normality of our lives. We also take advantage of the care and precision that goes into keeping that way. In our safe society the behaviors we display are expected to be courteous and polite. Society does not expect the people in it to be rude or without manners. Our society is like this because we are always being watched, being regulated. Many times people have wondered what would happen if we were not always watched. We wonder if man would be evil or good. That is exactly
the question being answered in the book, Lord of the Flies. William Golding uses internal and external conflict in order to develop his theme that the natural state of man is evil. In his book, William Golding uses external conflict to portray his theme.
The theme and external conflict are shown in the quote, ‘And you shut up! Who are you anyway? Sitting there telling people what to do. You can’t hunt, you can’t sing-’ (Golding). The author uses this to display how questionable civilization really is in the face of savagery. This dialogue is meant to remind us of a “dog-eat-dog” world. It also forces the reader to see the twisted form of power and responsibility this world would have. Otherwise put, this particular quote shows what man would be preferred to be ruled like, free only in one aspect; that you were free to choose this way of being ruled. The natural state of man prefers to be kept like dogs, well-fed but tightly collared with the possibility of being punished at random with no explanation. There are yet other examples of external conflict, ‘Bollocks to the rules! We’re strong-we hunt! If there’s a beast, we’ll hunt it down! We’ll close in and beat and beat-!’ (Golding). The passage is used to show the disregard for rules, for civilization. The quote is meant to shock readers with the raw brutality that they use everything. The number one tool of the natural man is violence, according to Golding. The purpose of this passage is to point out the utter lack of brain to balance out the over use of brawn, the brutality of mankind without audience the need to self-assert
physically. In Lord of the Flies, internal conflict is used to show his theme. Golding uses this bit of text as an example, “The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away. Once there was this and that; and now- the ship had gone.” (Golding). This quote is the solemn analysis of Ralph’s viewpoint. Being leader had matured Ralph greatly; this was meant to magnify that. More importantly though, the quote was supposed to exemplify the downward spiral of the behaviors & events that have happened since the official moment in which their chances of rescue, the spider’s thread that led the way back home to civilization, were almost completely diminished. It focuses the reader to the point from where things went downhill. Yet another example of internal conflict in the book is even more analytical, ‘What are we? Humans? Or animal? Or savages? What’s grownups going to think?’(Golding). In the passage, Piggy is asking what they have become and is ashamed when he realized that his precious standards are pointless if no one’s watching. To display the way Piggy, the head of civilization, sees and thinks about things is a great perspective to compare the before and after of what has happened, the retrogression they as a group have had. The way he worries over what the adults would have done, what they should doing, according to the far, far away expectations and standards of a past world. Although this text is showing someone holding on to “good” or civilization, Piggy is the only one and is not regarded as a proper functioning member of any group. Everyone writes Piggy off as nagging and not important. In the end, they got rid of their very last chance of hope. Piggy is the only one that has never faltered in trying to make sure that kept together and civilized. Civilization is a very fragile concept, one that is not though of often, and most certainly taken advantage of time and time again. An audience, it is perhaps the only thing that keeps us in our carefully drawn lines of safety. Without someone of importance, of authority to regulate we fall into a spiral of savagery losing our humanity every minute. Using the literary devices, internal and external conflicts, William Golding unfolds his theme that mankind is evil naturally.

Works Cited
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 1954