Power In Lord Of The Flies Essay

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Imagine that you and a group of other people you don’t know are deserted on a tropical island with no adults. This similar challenge is faced by a group of boys in the novel Lord Of The Flies by William Golding. In the novel one of the boys is elected chief and tries to create a mini community with laws and order, but a group of ruthless boys thinks otherwise and makes one of the most violent boys the new leader. The novel has multiple conflicts and problems that arise all revolving around the problem of power. William Golding presents a vast amount of themes throughout the story. One of the most basic themes is that society unites everyone together, and without these conditions, people’s beliefs, values, and the essentials of what is right and wrong are gone. Without society's rules, anarchy and savagery can be seen.…show more content…
“The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away,” (pg 91.) This significant quote is an example of how society's values are leaving the minds of the young boys, and is being replaced by violent thoughts and a lawless “community”. Without the rules of a society the beast from within every human can be seen. For example Jack who is the leader of the hunters seems to be the first who loses the sight of civilization’s rules. The instinct to live by rules, act peacefully, and to follow a code of conduct to ensure the instinct to satisfy one’s immediate desire to act violently to obtain dominance over others is eliminated. This “code of conduct” seems to be lost in the minds of the boys, and the need to abuse and kill takes them over instead because there is no one there to enforce the rules that they will actually listen to. Typically there is one person who has a high social standing that others can look up to. This person is someone who will enforce rules, normally an
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