Selfishness In Lord Of The Flies Research Paper

Have you ever wondered what would happen to a group of young children if they were stuck on an island with no adult? This is the exact scenario that was depicted in William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies. Children from the age of six to fourteen unexpectedly crash land on a deserted island, with no adult to assist them. No one has any idea whatsoever about whether they will be rescued or not. Some of these boys take a step forward to keep order between their minuscule population. One of these main characters is Ralph, a boy no older than twelve year. He had blown the conch shell, which allowed all the boys on the island to find each other. This prompted everyone to elect him as their chief. The way Ralph acts also plays an immense role

Piggy is truly the brains behind Ralph’s leadership on the island. He comes up with all of the ideas, such as calling the group together by using the shell and taking names as a source of accountability; however, he is unable to carry out his ideas due to a lack in assertiveness. “We can use this to call the others. Have a meeting. They’ll come when they hear us” ( 16) . Piggy idea is triumphant. The boys immediately begin to respond to the call of the shell, which becomes a significant symbol of authority. This shows us that Piggy comments are not always ridiculous, he shows true common sense and wisdom. “I got this to say. You 're acting like a crowd of kid. Which is better - to be a pack of painted like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph

In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, young boys get stranded on an island with no adults in the midst of a war. The boys were orderly and civilized in the beginning but then as they began killing pigs they slowly became savages and lost their civilization. The boys began turning on each other and the evil within them became present. Golding uses a variety of literary devices including personification, symbols, metaphors, and irony, to project the theme that pure and realistic people in the world can be unheard and destroyed by evil.

Ralph follows the lead of the hunters and makes his decisions based more on the savage instinct humans hold than what we had seen in the beginning of the novel. Golding uses Ralph as an example of the loss of civilization as Ralph is seen to be losing his sense of society through his forgetfulness of the fire. Ralph had lingered on what the fire was being used for when trying to make a point, “‘The smoke’s a signal and we can’t be rescued if we don’t have smoke.’ ‘I knew that!’ shouted Ralph. Piggy nodded propitiatingly” (Golding 174). Piggy is trying to satisfy and calm Ralph since he is able to see that Ralph is losing his leadership skills. Fear is setting into Ralph because he is neglecting the fire and is beginning to accept the island as somewhere he will stay. Through Ralph the pull and instinct to lean into destruction becomes more noticeable in the story. The final scene is the biggest tell of how far humans, even at a young age, can go. The hunters turned against Ralph and immediately their savage instinct took over. Golding describes the scene, “He blundered into the open, found himself again in that open space...no longer ridiculing a deep blue patch of sky but jeering up into a blanket of smoke,” this is foreshadowing what Golding later states

In today’s society, brain and brawn are considered to be of equal value because a society cannot run smoothly without both. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the issue of brain versus brawn and what will be the dominant element on the island creates conflict between the boys and Piggy, and when one starts to look down upon another, it tears apart a society. We see this when Piggy finds the conch and can’t physically blow it, doesn’t fit in with the group, and when he dies a martyr.

In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Ralph was chosen as a leader due to his charisma and communication skills with the other children. Many of the children begin to lose trust and faith in Ralph as their leader but that doesn't stop Ralph from holding himself at the title of “chief” amongst the boys. Ralph wasn’t able to be a good chief throughout the story which resulted in corruption and chaos with the others.

Ralph mocked piggy for his specks and that made piggy feel like he was the “center of social derision” (176). That is one thing that would Ralph a bad leader because when the others would bully Piggy Ralph didn't stop them he even joined them. Most people would agree that Ralph was a bad leader because he was a jerk and a bully towards piggy and to the other boys throughout the novel. Piggy still stayed by Ralphs side, Piggy would end up being the only one who Ralph can trust at the end of the novel. Ralph became selfish and rude towards the other boys. Ralph told Jack that his hunting team were just “boys with sticks”( ), that caused Jack to get angry at him and leave

The desire for power is one of the strongest human drives. In Lord of The Flies by William Golding there is a constant struggle for power between the main characters, Ralph, Jack, and Piggy. Ralph has power because he was voted chief and uses his power in an ugly way. Jack is struggling to get out of Ralph's power and gain his own power. The boys’ struggle for power is an ugly struggle and the author uses this to demonstrate the ugly struggle for power that is human nature. Hunger for power is an ugly part of human nature.

Society’s limitations on behavior are mandatory to conceal mans innate sense of evil. Inside of each man exists an ugly side. A side thought by some to be nonexistent.

In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of boys crash on an island. After the crash the boys find one another and Ralph (one of the boys) is declared leader via voting and the opponent, Jack, is not too fond of the outcome. Jack starts his own lot, and majority of the boys go because Jack is fun; he may be more exciting, but Ralph is a better leader. Ralph earned the role of chief before his character is fully shown, but he is in the rightful position. Ralph is a better leader because he thinks about each of the boys and does his best to get them of the island.

Society and humanity can be sweet, sweet things, until they inevitably go sour. At least, this is how William Golding portrays the two in the book Lord of the Flies. Throughout history

The human being is complex. Its nature even more so. Throughout his book, Lord of the Flies, William Golding attempts to interrogate the truth about human nature.

Selfishness is an innate human trait that when left unchecked, can cause the fabric of society to unravel. This is demonstrated in the allegorical novel The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, where a group of boys wrestle with their primal desires while attempting to survive on the island. The most obstructive person to this goal is a boy by the name of Jack. Although the group quickly comes together and divides the urgent tasks of their new society amongst themselves, Jack strays away from his. He instead pursues his own desire and takes responsibility for his own survival, rather than placing it in the hands of the group. He benefits from this quickly, causing more of the boys to follow in his footsteps. This leads to the eventual collapse of the boy’s welfare based society, as individuals begin to value their own wants over the group’s needs.

Everyone stands on some sort of moral ground. As long as that “ethical moral high ground” is under our feet, we are stable. Although, the big question is, what happens when the ground disappears? What becomes of our society? In the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding, there are three main influential characters that die on the island. There deaths, however seemingly small, greatly impact all the lives of the boys on the island. “The shape of society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political statement however apparently logical or respectable,”(Baker, xv). In this quote, Baker is saying that the shape of a society does not depend on a group of people, but a single individual. Depending on a person's

Without society, the organized and civil nature of humans falls apart and leads most people to a more primal and savage way of acting. After this primal nature of humans takes over, humans become driven by the id as opposed to the superego. This lack of empathy allows people to commit horrific acts. An example of this is shown in William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, when he theorizes what would happen when a group of people are abruptly removed from the strict order of society. Golding’s novel takes place on a deserted island after a plane crash strands a group of young english boys without any adult supervision. Originally, they set up an organized society,