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Lord Of The Flies Mob Mentality Analysis

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Stephen King once said, “Every book you pick has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones” (It is not about the good or bad of the quality of the book but the concepts and themes that it covers). As evil and pleasure are linked together, people learn about certain perceptions. William Golding's discussion about the human nature leaves the reader certain insights and lessons that people have witnessed during the past and further knowledge of how these can be used in the reality. The Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding leaves several insights including the potential or influence of power, mob mentality, and the excessive show of greed that can all bring disorder to a society. …show more content…

The issue of mob mentality happens frequently as people depend too much on one another and easily get influenced by what the majority of the people think and decide. The internal or hidden pressure among the group is another factor that leads to why people follow the majority. As everyone started to change when “All at once the crowd swayed towards the island and were gone-following Jack. Even the tiny kids went and did their best among the leaves and broken branches” (Golding 38). Once Jack had become a stubborn dictator, one by one people started to follow him. Since Jack was a threatening figure, as for Sam and Eric, it was hard to disobey him. Therefore, consequently, the kids started to join him. In reality, mob mentality is something that many of humans follow. People act and think the way others do and although some even know what they are doing is not right, the mob has the power to influence most of the decisions. Furthermore, once a number of people accumulate, the choices begin to turn out as a big matter. Mob mentality has often the power to try and do things people never dare to; since it is a whole group, not a single individual, and within it, the evil is easily exposed to nature. For example, “‘The chant rose a tone in agony “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!’”(Golding 152). The group Jack managed to control became a mob, so the kids did not have a choice but to follow. This chant, where they scream and mention multiple times in the book shows how heinous humans can be by simply spitting the words killing, cutting, and spilling blood as if it were nothing. The way in which people get too easily influenced is why people nowadays hesitate to stand up for themselves for what is wrong. The mob changes many perspectives although several times those actions are not done the correct

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Mob Mentality is a theme seen regularly in the book, “We’re Not From Here.” Mob mentality is when several people all act together on emotions rather than logic. It is commonly seen when the Zhuri gather together in swarms to attack Lan’s family. According to Psychology Today, one of the causes of mob mentality in groups is due to emotions and deindividuation. Most times when the Zhuri formed swarms, they were angry about the humans.

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Once Jack has a group formed, they become a group of young, evil boys following the worst person on the island. The reason Jack’s group turns evil along side him is because they either are afraid of what Jack could do to them if they didn’t join, or they really believe Jack is best fit to lead them and he will help them survive. The twins, Sam and Eric, for example join Jack’s group not because they want to, but because Jack tortures them into it(166). The group express’s their evil side as they perform a chant with everyone. They pretend to be killing a pig when they suddenly believe Simon is the beast of the island.

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Because, right after Jack said all the fun things they would do as a tribe many of the boys followed and joined him. This may be a prime example, but there are smaller examples that many don’t notice or turn a blind eye to. A smaller example is when events turn serious many will no longer listen to their leader. On page 142 the boys are all discussing how the fire and rescue is most important, but Samneric get the conch and together say, “That must be fun like Bill says-and he’s invited us- to a feast-meat-crackling-I could do with some meat.” This is a good example because it shows that people will try and get out of the serious stuff and instead do what they think is most important which to them at the time was meat.

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Jack’s hunters follow his every demand and now the tribe has inherited a part of evil in as followed by the quote, “Boys armed with sticks” (Golding 157). Jack has trained his tribe to be armed at all times and he even refers to the boys as “hunters.” Hunting with his followers gives him a rush of adrenaline and he thrives off the power. Jack uses his surroundings as an advantage to him in order to control, which corrupts innocence. In response, Woodward adds, “This is evil, an action, like Jack’s, so reprehensible that we cannot imagine a punishment for it” (Woodward 60).

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How Fear and Isolation Leads to Violence and Insanity It is evident in The Lord of the Flies that with every passing day on the island, a portion of the boys’ sanity withers away, along with their proper social etiquette. There are a lot of things on the island that the boys fear, one being themselves, that could cause them to act violently and more or less kill each other. This can be witnessed in the novel when Simon is lurking through the creepers and trees which are of a plentiful capacity, and gets bombarded by spears and rocks as the other boys attempt to kill Simon, or to them, the “Beastie” out of paranoia and fright. Out of all the boys as far as violence goes, Jack is the worst, killing anybody who would dare question him and having the confidence to single handedly take down the beast makes him an obvious contender to be the one who kills the entire island trying to rule out who the beast could be.

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Mob mentality occurs in The Lord of the Flies, especially when order is given to a group of people. “All at once the crowd swayed towards the island and were gone-following Jack. Even the tiny kids went and did their best among the leaves and broken branches” (Golding 38). This passage is showing leadership. The reader are also showing how Jack is the leader and everyone follows him and his orders.

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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.

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