Lord Of The Flies: The Flawed Civilization

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding shows the progression of absolute power, and how ambition can take over one's mind. Stranded on an island after their plane crashed, the boys create their own democracy with one absolute ruler, just like many other governments throughout history. The boys voted Ralph as their ruler, but Jack slowly starts to take some of Ralph’s power, and eventually usurps him as their chief. Lord of the Flies suggests that absolute power is corrupt, and that humans are overly ambitious in wanting to take power from the person who has the most of it. Just like any large group of people, the boys decide that they “ought to have a chief to decide things” (Golding 22).

In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, because of three defining moments, Jack changed the most out of all the boys. The first of the moments that changed him occurred in the beginning of the novel on page 23 when Ralph was chosen to be the chief of the boys instead of Jack. Jack was upset at not being chief, but he still took a position of leadership by making the choir boys the hunters and volunteering to be in charge of them. Ralph says “Jack’s in charge of the choir. They can be-what do you want them to be?’’

The characters in William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, illustrate a loss of morality that comes with the growth of tribalism. The book in question, Lord of the Flies, is about a group of boys who are the only survivors of a plane-crash on an uninhabited island, and how they survive on their own. The growth of tribalism was evident in the increasing separation between the boys and the eventual formation of two conflicting groups, and the loss of morality was illustrated by the boys’ lack of respect for human life. Instead of progressing through Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, we see the boys regress through the stages. The spark that created intense tribalism occurred at the start of the novel when Ralph was voted chief over

When Jack, Ralph, and Simon go on their expedition they come across a tied up piglet and decide to kill so as Ralph and Simon hold it down, Jack was supposed to slit its throat to let all the blood spill out, but, he paused and the piglet got away. The literal reason for Jack not killing the piglet is that he cannot deal with seeing the piglets blood flush out all over the ground. "There came a pause, a hiatus, the pig continued to scream and the creepers to jerk, and the blade continued to flash at the end of a bony arm" (Golding 31). The concept for why he could not is because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because he could not handle the blood. When the pig gets away, Jack says that he was just choosing a place, decide where to stab him, this foreshadows the death of something when Jack finds the place.

In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, it explores the ideas of power and leadership. During the novel, Golding uses the characters Jack and Ralph to portray the fact that humans have a desire for both power and leadership. In the novel, Jack represents the need for power and Ralph symbolises leadership. The terms of power and leadership are far different from each other, “power” is defined as ‘the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events.’

Throughout the novel the boys demonstrate ruthlessness, however their lack of remorse for their ruthless actions conveys an even stronger sense of loss of identity. With the help of the hunters, Jack kills the first pig on the island. When they carry the gutted pig back to Ralph and the others, Jack holds in his excitement. “He noticed blood on his hands and grimaced distastefully, looked for something on which to clean them, then wiped them on his shorts and laughed” (Golding 69). Jack demonstrates no sign of guilt for touchering and killing this innocent pig.

This is what will happen when boys are left to their own devices. In the post World War Two novel The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of young children, all boys, are stranded on an island after a plane crash. At first, the boys relish in their carefree, happy, island environment, but eventually after many terrible events it turns into a hellish nightmare. Although it may seem that complete autonomy is a good idea for each individual’s lives, in actuality humankind needs a strong, but not absolute, government to help ensure the continuity of the human race.

Civilization is extremely fragile. One wrong move or one bad person can completely destroy civilization. In Lord of the Flies, Ralph quickly tries to set up a sense of civilization. Jack’s savagery and desire for power destroyed Ralph’s fragile civilization. It only took one person with a different opinion to destroy this civilization.

“How does William Golding use a range of literary techniques to explore how characters use their power to control others in Lord of the Flies?” The classic 1954 book “Lord of the Flies’, written by William Golding demonstrates powerful literary techniques in order to explore how characters use and abuse their power to control others. Three techniques that illustrate this theme include: how the setting influences the characters actions, how the boys are characterized, and finally, the symbols they come to use as an element of power.

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). Lord of the Flies provides an example of how imperfections in human nature start to surface when people are in a groups. One imperfection is their tendency to do violent and demeaning things as a mob.

Man is Inherently Evil In Lord of the Flies, a novel by William Golding, there are several themes expressed through the boys from the beginning to the end. The main theme conveys that man is inherently evil. This can be understood from most aspects of the book. Golding conveys that man is inherently evil through the boys need to undermine each other and the loss of morality in their decent to chaos.