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Are Humans Born Savages In William Golding's Lord Of The Flies

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Are humans born savages? Yes, humans are born savages; and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies proves this. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding shows the kids’ return to their natural state of savagery as they drift further and further away from civilization. Civilization is just a facade and inside each and every human there is the basic instinct of survival, and that drives the savagery within. Everyone is capable of stabbing, shooting, or murdering someone, however, everyone has their own trigger… for some, it might be jealousy or envy and for some, it could be pure anger. Since humans are born savages everyone has an evil lying within, therefore when something happens that triggers that evil the human will resort to their natural sense …show more content…

The society humans live in constrict a human’s natural sense of savagery; however strip that away and put a human in a situation where the rules of civilization are absent then there will be nothing but pure chaos. In Lord of the Flies, the kids try incredibly hard to stay civilized, however, it proved to be too difficult as their inner evil started to take over. The island was slowly becoming increasingly now that the rules of civilization don’t exist meaning, it was all about “survival of the fittest”. The fact is, savagery always wins. That’s why the person who fully gave in to savagery was the one who ended up with more power and more control. That person was Jack, and at first, when he was playing along and acting civilized he wasn’t in control, he was the one being controlled. However as soon as he stopped choosing to be nice and let his natural instinct of survival guide him, he was the one on top. “Jack spoke."Give me a drink." Henry brought him a shell and he drank, watching Piggy and Ralph over the jagged rim. Power lay in the brown swell of his forearms: authority sat on his shoulder and chattered in his ear like an ape.” (Golding, 150). Civilization is a choice and as soon as one stops choosing civilization over savagery, that person’s true self will be

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