Lord Of The Flies Moral Analysis

Galvin 1
Zoe Galvin
Mr. Selbst
English 130
13 May 2015
Honors ­ Critical Essay
Morals, defined as the judgement of right or wrong of human action and character, form the bases of civil, stable societies. Although humans exhibit an innate ability to distinguish right from wrong, children must learn morals throughout their development by parents and other figures of authority. To teach these lessons concerning morality, authors write novels that captivate readers while supplementing their moral compass. In
Lord of the Flies
(1954) and
Brave New World
(1932), William Golding and Aldous Huxley integrate moral lessons into their novels by writing about innocence, the role of conformity in society, and brutality.
Throughout both novels, the authors utilize the innocence of children to challenge the
At home there was always a grownup.
Please, sir; please miss; and then you got an answer. How I wish!’” (Golding 94). Piggy is the only boy who is vigilant of the island’s problems and fears danger within the group when violence becomes prominent. Golding purposely enriches Piggy’s role as the level head in order to enforce the purpose of writing the novel:
[Golding] himself has said that the writing of
Lord of the Flies was an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. Golding sets up a group of children, who should supposedly be closest to a state of innocence alone on an island without supervision. In this fashion, he can test whether the defects of society lie in the form of society or the individuals who create it. (Henningfield
182)
Golding uses Piggy as the basis to teach the role society plays in the upbringing of children and how their morals waiver once guidance fades. Piggy, like Bernard and John from
Brave New
World
, refuses to bring himself to fully conform with the rest of the dystopian society and therefore the boys persecute him for his moral disagreements, a timeless moral lesson on
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