lotf essay
Baz Maz
Man: A Disease to the World Throughout history, the actions of man have been marked as a menace to society. For centuries, he has numerously played a key role to several acts of war, murder, racism and genocide. These actions all contribute to the idea of man as the one factor that hinders our human population from living in a perfect world. Although man will continue to show his innate evil, he will never be able to overcome the inner beauty of nature. The wise German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche went on and said “The world is beautiful, but has a disease called man.” In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a group of young boys survive a plane crash and become stranded on an empty island. Their attempt at civilization quickly fails, and leads to death and savagery. In Golding’s novel, the realization of man’s will to sin is shown through the killing of Simon, the Christ figure that maintains the sense of civilization and order on the island, and the brutal murder of the pig.
To begin with, the inhumanity of the boys is shown through the killing of Simon. Simon represents the rare, truly good people in the world, the ones that are civilized and turn away from violence. While the boys are concerned about what to do with the so called beast on the island, Simon makes a critical point. Simon challenges the statements about the beast, explaining “What I mean is . . . maybe it’s only us” (89). Unlike the other boys who see the beast as an external force, Simon sees it as a component of human nature. Although Simon is laughed at by the others for his suggestion, his words are directly tied with Nietzche’s point that innate human evil exists. However, once the boys resort to the acts of evil, all efforts to maintain peace and order on the island are destroyed. While chanting and dancing the reenactment of the hunting of the pig, the boys spot Simon creepily approaching from the forest. They mistake him for the beast and attack, “At once the crowd
Man: A Disease to the World Throughout history, the actions of man have been marked as a menace to society. For centuries, he has numerously played a key role to several acts of war, murder, racism and genocide. These actions all contribute to the idea of man as the one factor that hinders our human population from living in a perfect world. Although man will continue to show his innate evil, he will never be able to overcome the inner beauty of nature. The wise German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche went on and said “The world is beautiful, but has a disease called man.” In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a group of young boys survive a plane crash and become stranded on an empty island. Their attempt at civilization quickly fails, and leads to death and savagery. In Golding’s novel, the realization of man’s will to sin is shown through the killing of Simon, the Christ figure that maintains the sense of civilization and order on the island, and the brutal murder of the pig.
To begin with, the inhumanity of the boys is shown through the killing of Simon. Simon represents the rare, truly good people in the world, the ones that are civilized and turn away from violence. While the boys are concerned about what to do with the so called beast on the island, Simon makes a critical point. Simon challenges the statements about the beast, explaining “What I mean is . . . maybe it’s only us” (89). Unlike the other boys who see the beast as an external force, Simon sees it as a component of human nature. Although Simon is laughed at by the others for his suggestion, his words are directly tied with Nietzche’s point that innate human evil exists. However, once the boys resort to the acts of evil, all efforts to maintain peace and order on the island are destroyed. While chanting and dancing the reenactment of the hunting of the pig, the boys spot Simon creepily approaching from the forest. They mistake him for the beast and attack, “At once the crowd