Theme Of Savagery In Lord Of The Flies

Throughout history humans have tried to separate themselves from others to whom they feel they are superior. It has almost become human nature for people to find miniscule differences in cultures that don’t really even exist. This “us versus them” mentality that so many humans take part in can breed hate and bigotry and has led to a hypocritical idea of what civilization is, and similarly, what savagery is. Cultures have adopted this age old battle between righteous civilized people and animal-like savages to add legitimacy to their otherwise inconceivable acts. America, in particular has quite a track record of crossing into this gray area when it comes to what our founding fathers believed to be righteous political action or even
territorial
expansion. The idea of the battle between civilization and savagery is prevalent in literature and is addressed with William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies. In the novel, Golding writes of a marooned group of children and their fight for survival as violent events occur on the island.
Soon after the plane crashes, with no parental guidance, the boys try to create an organized
society.
From the start, the boys have moral issues with the younger children on the island and the structure starts to breakdown. Golding builds a conflict between the children’s “civilized” instinct to live by rules forming a structured system that values the group effort over that of the individual, versus mankind’s innate savage behavior to live by impulse to capture one’s immediate desires, act violently to obtain power over others. Carbonell 2
This “civilization versus savagery” theme is presented through the several characters in the novel. Very early in the book Ralph was the elected leader of the group of boys and created guidelines for the boys to live by. Most importantly, Ralph commissions the conch, that was used to call all off the boys together, as a talking stick and decrees that whoever has control of the conch is the only one allowed to speak. Piggy, Ralph’s right hand man, is the biggest advocate of the conch society, and is verbally accosted for defending the sanctity of the conch. Jack who is thirsty for power begins to fight with Piggy over the possession of the conch. The entire
group starts to form a deep seated hatred for Piggy because of his weight and pesters the boys for not following the rules that Ralph has laid out. This struggle creates distrust among some members and begins Jack’s struggle for power.
One day when the tension reaches an all-time high and the boys are fighting over the existence of a beast and choosing whether to go to the savage group or to stay with the civilized group. Simon’s journey to find the beast was interrupted when Simon met the devil that took the form of an impaled pig. As he returns with news for the other boys the boys viciously attack
Simon, thinking he is the beast. His subsequent death marks a transition in the book from civilized to savage.
During this seemingly psychotic episode, Simon realized that the beast was nothing but a dead parachutist, and that the only thing that the children had to fear was the beast inside each and every one of them. Throughout the book, Jack struggles to take the power away from Ralph.
Jack finally achieves this goal when Piggy, Ralph, and the rest of Ralph’s group go to Jack’s camp to take back Piggy’s eye-glasses that Jack stole from Piggy. After a verbal confrontation between camps, one of the boys throws a rock and crushes Piggy and kills him instantly. Ralph Carbonell 3 immediately runs for safety as the other boys attempt to burn the island to fish out Ralph’s location. During this final encounter, a navy rescue crew came to rescue the boys from the island and Ralph is the first to reach safety. As the officer embraced Ralph, the encompassing power of savagery sweeps over Ralph as he, “wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy” (Golding 186-187). Golding writes that the boys are rescued from the island, and saved by the adult world that is no less savage than the island. The constant struggle between savagery and civilization in the novel is a statement on the inner struggle that all humans have trying to decipher what is right and wrong. Without intelligence, reason, and natural human goodness, savagery will always win. The juxtaposition of the war going on in the outside world to the island gives the reader and interesting contrast between the attacks and brutal events on the island deemed “savage” and the war on the outside world deemed “civilized”. Although the events on this “savage” island are horrible and devilish acts, it really is not much different than the events taking place of the civilized world, where we can assume large numbers of people are dying by the hands of other human beings. The events of this novel help to explain human nature further blurring the line of what “Savagery” really is. This warped idea of civilization versus savagery is what led to the brutal treatment and slaughter of the Native American people. The hypocrisy of the early settlers created this notion that their colonization and their escape from religious persecution was sanctioned by God and that all of their conquests were righteous. The bitter irony of it all is that the native people were the most civilized people in America and had their own form of law and order that the colonists and early Americans disrupted. With the onslaught of their people and the rape of their land, the Carbonell 4
Native American population dropped from 12 million when the colonists first came to America to an estimated 237 thousand after the infamous Trail of Tears (Lewy). The early colonists felt that it was their duty to make North America a civilized country by decimating an entire
“savage” culture and somehow felt that their acts were civilized. History of the Native Americans can show what can happen when “civilized” society interferes with that of the savage. Other cultures have and will be destroyed due to this exact treatment of the “savage”. Another example of this treatment of the savage can be seen with the indigenous Yanamamo tribe of South America.
The Yanomami, or Yanamamo, is the largest tribe living in the Amazon Basin and occupy a large stretch of Rainforest in southern Venezuela and northern Brazil. The tribe is split up into small villages, grouped by families in one large communal dwelling called a Shabono.
Shabonos are disc-shaped and house the entire village and usually number from 50 to 400 people. These living quarters are built from raw materials from surrounding jungles, such as leaves, vines, plums and tree trunks. Because of the materials used to build the Shabono, they are susceptible to heavy damage from rains, winds and insects infestation.
The villages are selfgoverned but will interact with one another (Life among the Yanomami). For about a thousand years the Yanomami people have lived in this region, and as of
1992 have been recognized legally as the region’s owners. This reserve, twice the size of
Panama, is a site for large amounts of precious metal and also attracts lots of mining. Recently,
1000 miners were sent to the basin to begin work on the Yanomamo territory. This sudden interest in the gold found in this area, brings disease and fight over land. Because of this rush, the
Yanomami’s land is being taken and they are being forced out of their homes. Disease is threating the lives of thousands of tribe members, who are grossly unprepared for the eminent Carbonell 5 epidemic. The fate of this South American tribe is being threatened due to this materialistic quest for gold.
This “savage” tribe is being threatened by the “civilized” people who are seeking pretty objects to wear on their hands. One group of people is using its environment safely and effectively for subsistent living, while the other wants to destroy the lives of thousands to rip this precious metal out of the ground. Who is truly
Savage?