The Power of Mob Mentality Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one." In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the group of boys gradually succumb to mob mentality as their rationality and individuality fades away, starting an uncontrollable first fire and involving themselves in the brutal killing of Simon and hunt for Ralph until it paves the way for the disastrous consequences of their actions. The success of the group's first fire on the island proves to be a critical turning point in the boy’s behavior on the island as it marks the start of their gradual decline into mob mentality and reckless behavior. After Ralph declares their plans for rescue, the boys eagerly …show more content…
Isolated from the rest of the boys, Ralph recognizes the boys’ new behavior as he states, “they were savages, it was true, but they were human” (185). This reveals how the boys have regressed to their primal instincts, which is shown by the use of the word ‘savages”, while the phrase “they were human” also indicates how they have lost their sense of humanity in the process. Their willingness to commit violence against Ralph, who was once their friend and leader, further exemplifies their behavior under the influence of mob mentality. In Ralph’s desperate attempts to escape from the boys who have turned into a bloodthirsty mob, he realizes that he is no longer facing a group of rational individuals but rather a mindless and violent entity that has abandoned all sense of morality. After bursting through his now given-away hiding spot, Ralph runs through the swinging savages and onto the beach. As he staggers to his feet, he looks around and comes to his senses: “the island was scorched up like dead wood-Simon was dead-and Jack had… The tears began to flow...Ralph wept for the end of innocence and the darkness of man’s heart” (202). In their pursuit of Ralph, the boys abandon their sense of morality and individual responsibility, instead becoming part of a mob that only desires to kill one of their own. Their loss and …show more content…
Together, the boys share the success of their first fire, which becomes the catalyst for their decline into mob mentality, leading to increasingly reckless and violent behavior that ultimately culminates in the brutal killing of Simon and the hunt for Ralph. Through their experiences and descent into savagery, we can see how easily our own sense of morality and humanity can be lost when faced with the temptation to surrender to the mob. It serves as a warning about the dangers of groupthink by illustrating the importance of maintaining one’s own moral compass and individuality in the face of group pressure as surrendering to the mob can only lead to devastating
The boys divide into two major groups as the story goes on. the hunters, led by Jack, and the "civilized" group led by Ralph. Each group strengthens its commitment to its core motives as they come to agree on actions and choices. In the end this mob mentality and groupthink result in hostility and violence between the two groups.
As a result of undergoing rapid maturing as a safety response to a dire situation, Ralph can now fully process what he has experienced, emotionally. At first, he was carefree, but then he quickly began to become more concerned with the pressing matters of survival. Ralph had no time to step back and process what is going on but now he has the ability and the responsibility to deal with healing from the trauma and grief he has encountered in his survival. Ralph realizes what and who all has changed, sees that his perspective on reality has forever changed, and understands he, as well as the other boys, will never be the same, innocent, carefree boy he was when he first landed on the island; a thought that is utterly terrifying and
Masks, Mantras, and Misleaders: Studying Mob Mentality in Lord of the Flies In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, an intriguing theme is examined throughout the novel: the hazardous nature of a social phenomenon called mob mentality. In a summarized definition of the term, mob mentality is the tendency of individuals to conform to the actions of a larger group. During scenes depicting mob mentality, the boys are detached from their identities and can avoid taking responsibility for their actions as they participate in the group activity. The inclination toward such tendencies is exhibited in multiple scenes in the novel that become increasingly aggressive and violent.
In the novel Lord of the Flies written by William Golding, mob mentality is the main factor in the loss of civilization amongst the boys’. Mob Mentality is when people become followers and do what they ordinarily would not do if they were by themselves, instead of in a group. Which happened in this case; Jack felt embarrassed when Ralph scolded him for not catching a pig yet. Jack decided to prove Ralph wrong, which led to the hunters becoming obsessed with killing one. When they did, the hunters started chanting “Kill the pig.
Ralph was the leader of the civilized group, and Jack was the leader of the savage and bloodthirsty hunting group. Important arguments between the civilized boys and savage boys come up in three important moments throughout the book: when the signal fire is allowed to go out and a boat passes by the island, when Jack leaves the civilized group to create his group of savages, and when the savages steal Piggy’s glasses to make their own fire. The first key moment near the beginning of the book shows the growing tension between civilization and savagery. It comes up when
Soon enough, Ralph takes a moment to remember the deaths of his friends that he witnessed and the fact that he almost gets killed himself by Jack. Ralph is so traumatized to the point that “...[he] wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend of Piggy.” (p. 202) Ralph cries at the thought that he might never get his innocence back and the outcome of living with bloodthirsty people. Ralph grieves about the unending mark of evil in people’s hearts, an evil that he did not expect to come out before witnessing it on his friends.
The reason Ralph is not violent is because his morality is still intact. This displays that as the violence increases in the boys, their sense of morality is
The boys learn more about savagery and lose their sense of civilization. After the boys break off, there is a war. Not a war in the world, but a war between the boys on who's better than the other and who should be named leader. Death and trauma haunt the boys although certain ones are affected more than others. Although the boys should never go through such pain and trauma, Ralph definitely did.
One of the last boys to keep his innocence, Ralph is bombarded with the cries of his friends being tortured by the savages. The savages have had their innocence lost for so long that they have started to take it out on what used to be their friends by hurting and torturing them. The book actively shows how a loss of innocence in a child causes them to turn savage and horrible
This transition is also distinctly demonstrated when Jack burns the entire island, looking to hunt Ralph. The fire causes total destruction of the island, “Smoke was seeping through the branches in white and yellow wisps, the patch of blue sky overhead turned to the color of a storm cloud, then the smoke billowed round him”(Golding 195). It is proven that Jack is truly evil because his only motive for making the fire is to hunt and kill Ralph. Also, the allegorical meaning of this fire is hell because all of the boys would have ended up dying, they are trapped on the island and the fire spreads quickly. In other words, Jack's violent intrusive thoughts take over his mind, which causes him to forget about the other boys on the island, putting them and himself in danger.
Fear of a dangerous creature on an island leads the boys to do unexpected things, from turning against each other to killing one another. Jack, a prideful boy, even took advantage of this to control others and guide them into making decisions to his benefit. The group of boys live in relative harmony, taking orders from Ralph, an elected leader, but when this new sighted beast shows up, Ralph witnesses the group falling apart with mass panic, “In a moment the platform was full of arguing, gesticulating shadows. To Ralph, seated, this seemed the breaking up of sanity. Fear, beasts, no general agreement that the fire was all-important: and when one tried to get the thing straight the argument sheered off, bringing up fresh, unpleasant matter” (Golding 88).
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.
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.
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.
However, Jack and his tribe are eager to hunt Ralph down. In this final scene, it is clear that savagery completely took over civilization on the island. “Fun and games,” said the officer. (Golding, 181). The naval officer correctly identified the hunt, because the boys allowed the inner evil dominate themselves.