Rousseau Lord Of The Flies Analysis

“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.” Jean Jacques Rousseau once said. How you behave through the environment and experiences is what shapes us in society. Do you think someone could be born evil? The book “The Lord of the Flies” and other sources defend the position Rousseau has stated, that being born evil isn’t true.

William Golding who was a novelist that believed human is born with the tendency to do evil, Jean-Jacques Rousseau had his own idea. Rousseau once quoted that “society’s negative influence on men centers on its transformation of “amour de soi” into “amour-propre” (The Basics of Philosophy). Saying that the environment changes one person from a positive self-love with human desire for self-preservation, combined with the human power of reason into a kind of artificial pride which forces man to compare himself to others, creating fear and allowing men to take pleasure in the pain or weakness of others (The Basics of Philosophy). Also

Throughout the book Piggy was the one character that always strived for a good society so that everyone would remain good as a whole. As an example “Piggy was so full of delight and expanding liberty in Jack’s departure, so full of pride in his contribution to the good of society, that he helped to fetch wood” (Chapter 8, Page 129). Piggy still with a reasonable mind is still trying to convince others to do good also. He stated “Which is better--to have to be a pack of painted indians like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is?” (Chapter 11, Page 180). Lastly to keep everything sane they needed to come up with rules to keep everything civil. Piggy suggested “We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything. So we’ve got to do the right things” (Chapter 2, Page 42). Piggy was the most sane and smart about keeping everything in order and