Author William Golding was a veteran of the Second World War. He wrote Lord of the Flies from his experiences of the war and how humans treated each other. His story explains his views that humans have savage instincts and will eventually turn to corruption without some kind of governmental system. The book follows the story of a group of English boys whose plane has been shot down onto a deserted island. The boys try to retain civilization by but as time goes on, civilization turns into savagery.
Golding’s opinions of humanity are shown throughout the book and have left me, as well as other readers, with a small glimpse of the horrors Golding has faced through his years serving in the military. Before reading Lord of the Flies, I didn’t too much about the human cruelty in everyone. After reading, I started to think about what Golding seems to say about civilization and that got me to look at myself in a new light.
“Am we as evil as Golding claims all humans to be?” While I’d like to think most of my intentions are for good causes, it is difficult to truly say how we would react to the circumstances the boys faced. I don’t consider myself to be perfect. I have flaws, just like any other human being. One of these flaws are definitely the power structures in society today. Many people tend to pick favorites and usually, those are the ones that are the same as them. Today, society is very harsh on people who are not the same as everyone else. Because it is human nature to like seeing consistency. These themes are shown in Lord of the Flies through the boys’ cruelty to Piggy. Piggy is intelligent, gives Ralph advice on leading, and is constantly reminding the boys to keep hold of the life they left behind. However, his powerful qualities are being ignored by the qualities that set him apart from the rest of the boys. Piggy is on the heavier side, has bad eyesight, and cannot run as well due to his asthma. Those are the qualities that most of the boys acknowledge (in a bad way) because those are different from everyone else’s. They bully Piggy for the things that set him apart from the rest.
Another flaw of human nature is jealousy. Everyone gets envious, some more so easily than others. No one is completely selfless or can never get jealous. It is simply part of human nature. Jealousy also is present in Lord of the Flies. It is shown numerous times in the book where Jack is jealous when Ralph chooses Piggy over him. There is definitely resentment over Piggy because of that and may be part of the reason Jack resents Piggy so much.
While there are many negative aspects of human nature, are they enough to prompt the violence and chaos portrayed in Lord of the Flies? We may never be able to know. However, many people don’t agree with Golding’s ideas. They scoff and say that the book is an exaggeration of society. “If I was marooned on an island, I would be fine,” they would tell me. I feel like that is what we all think of first – we trust our good intentions so much that we neglect to acknowledge our less civilized instincts.
This is just a small thing, I am not sure it answers the questions though!
