Comparing Evil In Lord Of The Flies And A Long Way Gone

When it comes to the novel, Lord of the Flies, some of us will readily agree that the boys’ immoral and savage acts exposed at the end of the novel, demonstrates the evil that lives naturally within humankind. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of was the cause for the boys’ immoral and savage conducts a biological or an environmental factor. Whereas some are convinced that biological factors are to blame, others maintain that the situation or the environment is to blame for their behavior. In my own view, both factors are to blame for the boys’ immoral and savage behavior, but the environment the boys’ where force to live had the most impact on their actions.

In the book, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, the boys start off being civil and got to being savage. The boy’s savage and immoral behavior, in my opinion, should be blamed on biological factors, rather than the environment. The boys started acting out once they started losing their minds and things they need.

Are humans instinctively evil? Savage? In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, young boys are left to organize themselves into a society to keep balance and peace on the island. When the society crumbles beneath their feet, one must ask these questions. The downfall and overall plot of the book is largely telling of human nature, and may be a smaller analogy for human nature in itself. The theme of human nature in The Lord of the Flies permeates the book through the characters, their archetypes, and the plot itself.

The Monitor on Psychology article “What makes good people do bad things?” by Melissa Dittmann analyzes the results of the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Stanford psychology professor Phillip Zimbardo in 1971 and discusses what the experiment can tell us about human nature and what causes humans to be evil. In the novel “Lord of the Flies” the author William Golding discusses the effects of the theories mentioned in the article by creating his own fictional experiment with children stranded on an island during a nuclear war. Throughout his novel Golding explores the focus of Dittmann’s article; that environments and situations can bring out the evil that is inside all of us. People can act good or bad depending on their environment, and these actions are not entirely their fault because when people are not held accountable for their actions their more violent natures are revealed.

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 of savagery because that is their nature and because civilization is just a concept that keeps us from showing our true selves.

Situations can become so severe that they can lead to savagery in one’s individual environment. Golding states in the novel Lord the Flies, “Simon was mistaken for the beast and the boys get together and kill him” (Golding 147). This proves that the environment controls people because the island starts to slowly change the boys in becoming more and more vicious. According to the “Stanford Prison Experiment” article, “For the most part, however,

A psychology professor Phillip Zimbardo once explained "people are seduced into evil by dehumanizing and labeling others." I believe this is true labeling and dehumanizing others can make it particularly easy to forget all of your moral codes amd forget about the goodness inside you. A lot of this is seen in William Goldings book Lord of the Flies, a story is told about a group of British school boys who are stranded on an island after their plane crashes. The boys are left without adults so one boy named Ralph steps up to power and leads them all. There is a struggle for power when a boy named Jack seeks to be leader, but he has different ways of leading then Ralph. Through Jacks leadership we see institutions of law being order ignored and swept under the rug, enabling the boys to become more primitive and

William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies is about a group of young boys, aged around 6-12, that crash land on an uninhabited island, and without adults, they fail miserably. In E.L Epstein’s article “NOTES ON LORD OF THE FLIES” Golding reveals in his novel that the flaws in human nature lead to a flawed society; which is seen in society (Epstein par. 3).

Thesis Statement: In Lord of the Flies William Golding throughout the book is trying to show you that society should recognize man is evil.

People think that inherent goodness does not exist, but it is more prevalent than one might think. Although the topic of inherent goodness can be difficult to think about, talking about it is sometimes easier. Inherent goodness has been created over time as a mindset that people are born good, and nobody is born bad. Everyone wants to do the right thing. For an extreme example, a terrorist thinks he is doing the right thing by setting off a bomb. Many situations in life can put into action inherent good, and many people will channel this good. Inherent good can be difficult to explain, but many examples can explain it in great detail.

"Most of the Evil in this world is done by people with good intentions." These wise words of T.S. Elliot relate to how William Golding, the author of Lord of the Flies, represent from where evil emerges throughout the story. Evil will not exempt kids, who are very innocent, from perpetrating uncivil acts. In the story, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, a group of British schoolboy's evacuation plane crashes during World War II, leaving them stranded on the island. Golding emphasizes how the boys encounter their civil ways while evil emerges onto the island. Throughout the novel, William Golding's reasoning that evil comes from within was expressed through rhetorical devices describing the scene where Simon talks the the lord of the flies,

At the end of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the children whose actions were chronicled in the book committed atrocities like murder and torture. Regular children somehow did things worse than anything that they ever could have imagined back at home. This begs the question of what prompted what once were normal children to snap: the circumstances or something that was inside of them all along. The answer in my mind isn’t as simple as one or the other. A winning combination of both spurred average boys into becoming killers, because without something dark being triggered in some of the boys, no one would have even thought about the horrible things that ended up happening. The deciding factor for these boys and their horrible acts was their

It is said that most people if put in a particular situation they would not do things they would normally. In the novel Lord Of The Flies, by W.Golding, a group of young boys are stranded on an isolated island cut off from society, having no adults or figures of authority on the island, the boys become savage. Examples of such savagery would be the murders, the cruelty of Jack, and how even Ralph could succumb to it as well

Throughout the novel of Lord of the Flies, William Golding provides a profound insight into human nature. Golding builds on a message that all human beings have natural evil inside them. To emphasize, the innate evil is revealed when there’s lack of civilization. The boys are constantly faced with numerous fears and eventually break up into two different groups. Although the boys believe the beast lives in the jungle, Golding makes it clear that it lurks in their hearts. The message of inner evil is portrayed throughout the book by the destruction of the conch, terrifying beast, and character developments to establish the hidden message throughout the novel.

Evil has always been evident, throughout the history of man examples of evil are apparent, so why would our literature be any different? Written in 1959 William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies is no different, as its theme explores the natural evils of man through the plot. The book tells of the events that occur after a group of young boys are marooned on an island, the main characters Ralph, Jack, Piggy, and Simon, grapple with finding food and water while they struggle with the return of more animalistic instincts without the guiding hand of civilization. The intrinsic evil and unavoidable sins of man are are exposed through William Golding’s characterization and overlying themes in Lord of the Flies.