Lord of the Files by William Goldings is about a number of boys being stranded on an unknown island without any adult authority figure. The boys have to learn how to survive, awakening a hidden urge buried inside humanity. “The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature” (background).
While society grows and advances, the more civilized humanity is. Because the boys are trapped on an island with little society, they begin to show evidence of humanity’s inborn capacity for evil.
When a cat plays with a mouse, it really does not do any harm to it. The cat is just having fun, while the mouse is scared out of its mind. Finally, when the cat gets hungry, it eats the mouse, putting it out of its misery (doc C).
The cat does not fully understand what it feels like to be hunted. It is just listening to an inner voice, not knowing what it actually means, it just knows it is having fun and playing around with a smaller victim. In the novel, Jack is always putting Piggy down by calling him names such as fatty.
He never listens to Piggy’s intelligent suggestions or reasons. Jack bullies Piggy just because Piggy seems like the smaller victim because he’s fat and insecure about himself. Jack does this because he is turning more savage and is listening to his inner evil. With the more technology man has, the more civilized man is (picture).
In the early years of mankind, man had to use physical and pure brute strength to obtain food. Nowadays, mankind has learned to domesticate animals and kill them in a more efficient way. When mankind had to use pure brute strength they were very savage.
The Essay on Lord Of The Flies Piggy Ralph Jack
Lord Of The Flies is possibly one of the most complex novels of the twentieth century. This complexity and depth is evident when the characters are compared to the psychological teachings of Freud. The book shows examples of this psyche in the characters Jack, Piggy and Ralph and how they change during their time on the island. Towards the end of the eighth chapter it became very apparent that ...
Unlike today, where mankind is more civilized because killing of animals is not as common. For example, in Lord of the Files, the boys have to use brute strength to get their food because they do not have grown ups to do it for them. The boys having to kill animals means they are losing their civilization. Once mankind starts to lose its civilization, it forgets society and what matters. Mankind begins killing for entertainment (doc D).
It begins to look for excuses to kill. While all of this is happening, mankind doesn’t know it is getting more and more savage.
Jack, one of the best hunters on the island, realizes he enjoys killing living creatures when he kills his first pig. The boys believe there is a beast on the island, but the beast is not bothering them. While Ralph holds an assembly to say they should ignore the beast, if there is one, while Jack is saying they should kill the beast. When it is clear to the boys there is not beast, they being to realize the beast was in all of them. The deaths of Jewish families in the first Richard’s time were due to them being locked in a tower that was to be set on fire (doc C).
The people who killed the families clearly underestimated death, thinking they can kill off Jews for no lagitament reason. Even though they are just young boys, the deaths of Simon and Piggy should have had more effect on them. There is something inside of them that said it was okay, that everything is going to be alright. While running away from jack and his group, Ralph runs into a naval officer. When the naval officer asks him if anyone died, he did not realize how horrible the deaths are until he sees the officer’s reaction.
Ralph begins to cry and the rest of the boys join in, realizing how naive they are, listening to their inner evil. Indeed the boys are displaying evidence of humanity’s inner evil. The theme of the whole novel is to show humanity’s ability to ennate evil and Goldings does this by showing characteristics of savagery in Jack. He also shows the opposite characteristics, civilization, in Ralph. By doing this, Goldings was able to show how fast humanity’s inner evil can appear in a more savage person then a civilized person. Also, throughout this novel, he is able to prove humanity’s innate capacity for evil.
The Essay on Beast Evil Fire Symbolism
Throughout the book "lord of the flies" golding tries to illustrate his arguments and theories of humans ultimate evil through symbolism. In this essay I will explain how golding tries to warp are minds through symbolism into believe the lies he is tries to tell us, in this case the conch, the fire and the pigs head. The conch from the very beginning, "a conch he called it. He used to blow it and ...
