Imagine you're falling out of a plane, children screaming, and no adults in sight. You’re left stranded alone with children you've never met before. Someone must lead to survive. Who's it going to be? This exact situation takes place in the novel, Lord of the Flies, which faces two young boys against each other in a competition to be the chief.
A Symbolic Moment Arguably, the conch shell is one of the most symbolic items in the novel; the moment Ralph blows into it, the boys are brought together. It is this pivotal moment that makes Ralph appear to be the clear choice for a leader. It is easy to understand why the boys gravitated towards him, their first sight of Ralph was of him sitting, "the conch trailing from one hand, his head bowed on his knees;" (Golding, 19) a clear image of confidence and strength. The boys are easily swayed by his symbolic power and when it comes time to choose between Ralph and Jack, the majority of the boys rush to support Ralph as their leader. Why did they choose Ralph?
Is it right to leave behind what a person believes in order to join a safer group? In William Golding’s classic novel Lord of the Flies the characters Sam and Eric are very civil characters who makes the decision to “go with the flow” from the moment the plane crashes to the moment the boys are rescued. Throughout the book, these twins struggle to decide which of the two leaders to follow. In the end it seems that Samneric leave Ralph’s civil tribe and join Jack’s savage tribe. However, Samneric never change their beliefs.
They chose a leader who calamitously failed. A leader who was favored by society. A leader who the stranded boys put their trust in. If only the boys ignored social standards, their situation could have been exceptionally different. William Golding’s, Lord of the Flies, reveals that leadership is not limited to those who are popular; other factors, aside from social status, should be considered, as demonstrated through the archetype of the characters, the author’s point of view, and the resolution of the story.
“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.” This quote is said by Peter Drucker. The more effort leaders put in the more effort they are going to get out from the people they are leading. The leader might be dis-liked, but being liked isn’t in the job description. Being a leader might not be that hard, but just because they are a leader doesn’t mean they are good.
In William Golding’s novel, The Lord of The Flies, he suggests that humans are innately evil because the characters actions support the idea throughout the novel. Throughout the novel, the characters actions and their overall behaviors show how the boys are innately evil. First, the overall enjoyment and pleasure the boys receive when they were torturing and killing the pigs shows the evil that is built up inside of them. Readers can see in the novel, “As they danced, they sang, Kill the pig. Cut her throat.
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?’’
What would life be without evil in the world? Many optimists believe there is an inherent goodness gifted to all people at birth and fundamentally embedded in us that dictates our actions, but the reality is exactly the contrary. People are evil, not because of a desire or choice but out of absolute necessity on account of none of the things we enjoy today would be available or even invented without some evil. Evil, within limitations and with restrictions, is productive for a group of people. Society, with all its art, culture, music, and glory, was created because there was evil present and now works to destroy its very creator through police departments and social initiatives.
Every child comes into this world as a selfish, manipulative, cruel and stubborn being. It is the parents and society that teaches children how to function in a civilized world, and societal laws that keeps them under control. William Golding wrote this novel in the early years of the cold war and the atomic age. In William Golding's classic novel Lord of the Flies, Golding uses Jack, a young savage who looks to lead a group of stranded kids on an island with no food, no rules, and no adults. The effect freedom has on Jack has turned him into a savage because he does not have to listen to anyone since there are no adults on the island.
A group of boys from Britain are being flown on a plane out of their country because a raging war has erupted and it was no longer safe. As they are flying the plane is shot down in the midst of the war and the boys go crashing down onto a deserted tropical island. The boys regather themselves and realized the situation that they were in. The boys quickly pick a leader and it is a character named ralph, as the story goes on there are many challenges the little group of boys face. Golding demonstrates the theme that we need civilization to tame the savage within us all in a variety of ways throughout the novel.
Humans, according to the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, are selfish by nature. In his landmark work, Leviathan, he explains the importance of a strong government in society. According to Hobbes, without a strong system of government people would revert into a primitive state; war would run rampant, the natural law would not be abided, and those once tamed by society would become evil. William Golding based his novel, Lord of The Flies, on a similar idea. In this novel, many characters digress from civility into savagery.
“He’s a feral child. No mother, no father, no one to care for him or raise him or teach how to be human” (Rodman Phillbrick). Throughout the novel Lord of the Flies there are many signs of the group of boys changing in drastic ways. If a child is left alone in a forest without society to tell them how to act they will become more instinctual. Reasons to support this theory are the physical changes, emotional changes, and the behavioral changes.
When Jack failed to keep the signal fire going, Ralph scolded him because at the same time the smoke went out, a ship passed by the island. Jack in embarrassment and irritation and, “Ralph made a step forward and Jack smacked Piggy’s head. Piggy’s glasses flew off and tinkled on the rocks. Piggy cried out in terror… “One side’s broken.”’ (Golding, 71).
In life, you will have a time where you must make a hard choice, one that could impact your life significantly. Once settling with the right decision you instantly get hit by regret and anxiety, questioning yourself if you choose the right decision or not. Emotions cause negative outcomes, affect people's lives. In the novel Lord Of The Flies, Roger had the decision to kill piggy. He has the chance to kill piggy, so he did.
Everyone will face evil at some point in their lives, but the way the evil is embraced or deflected will differ among every man. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, symbolism is used to communicate the theme of Understanding the Inhumanity/Inherent Evil of Man as represented through the double ended spear, the fire, and the Lord of the Flies. The spear represents the evil inside of humankind and the perception that killing and hurting each other out of anger is acceptable. Fire symbolizes the evil act of stealing to achieve a human wants. Lastly, the Lord of the Flies symbolizes the Inherent Evil of Man through demonstrating that a boy understood that the evil is within them instead of around them, and is not something that could be killed
