Golding's Lord Of The Flies Essay

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Buried beneath the way we have been taught to behave in society, there is a slice of savagery within every human to walk this planet, whether they choose to admit it or not. This concept is one of the main themes in the dystopian novel Lord of the Flies written by William Golding. Golding’s writing suggests to us that he believes we are all born savage and society’s rules are set in place to contain our inner evil. Nearly every object and every character in this novel is an analogy for some aspect of our society. Ralph is a symbol of order whereas Jack represents chaos and the island the boys crashed on is a metaphor for our world. At first glance, Lord of the Flies seems to be nothing more than a tale of adventure and survival, but once the…show more content…
From the moment Ralph is elected as chief, Jack’s jealousy and desire for power is evident. Jack’s former civilized identity does not stick around for long and he is soon overcome with impulses to hunt creatures on the island and adopt new behaviours. Jack uses face paint not only as camouflage from his prey but as a mask that provides him a new identity. With this mask, Jack allows his inner beast to break free and he no longer feels guilt for his cruel actions. Hunting on the island was inevitable, due to limited food sources, but Jack always discovered some sadistic game that he could find additional pleasure from such as the re-enactment of the pig hunt with Robert playing the part of the pig. The boys get carried away and seem to forget that it is simply a game and end up seriously injuring Robert. Although they witnessed the damage they created, they don’t seem to be bothered by it and joke about doing it again in the future. Tired of having everyone obey Ralph, Jack decides to overthrow Ralph by starting his own tribe of savages. Afraid of what he is capable of doing, the tribe complies with all of Jack’s orders, regardless of how brutal they may be. Eventually Jack’s newfound dictatorship leads to the murder of Piggy and the destruction of the conch shell. When this occurs, savagery has officially abolished civilization and any remaining organization and unity on the island has
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