Savagery In Lord Of The Flies, By William Golding

Lord of the Flies, a novel by William Golding, depicts the atrocities that occur when a marooned group of English preadolescent boys succumb to the innate savagery within them. Having allegorical qualities, the novel demonstrates how the boys each represent a characteristic of human society, each with his own strengths and shortcomings. The novel’s uncanny, yet realistic, representation of children shapes its overall meaning by demonstrating the mercilessness of nature itself as well as conveying to the reader that any individual is capable of giving into savagery and evil. Throughout the plot, Golding illustrates the ruthlessness of nature through certain events that occur on the island. Some of the boys, Simon in particular, are marveled by nature’s pulchritudinous attributes and enjoy
Listening to the other boys’ discovery of a “snake-like beastie”, the altruistic and Christ-like Simon proposes that “maybe it’s only [them]”; the boys’ disbelief in Simon’s remark shows that their innate evil is not something that their are conscious about. From then on, the boys, including the civil Ralph and intellectual Piggy, commit various grotesque and disturbing actions, such as the fatal maiming of Simon and the killing of the sow, which lead to a point where they all turn against each other. Their attempts at maintaining order proving to be futile, the boys’ sudden realization that there’s no longer an established order in the absence of adults and authority figures emphasizes their succumbing to the natural human evil that they are not aware of. By the end of the plot of the novel, the appearance of the naval officer that has come to rescue the boys causes Ralph to cry due to his realization that he is no longer innocent; at such a young age, Ralph has seen human nature as it truly is, and the reader can assume that his and the other boys’ lives will never be the