Lord Of The Flies Analytical Essay
Lord of the Flies Analytical Essay
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies takes place during the Second World War, where one sees the true nature of the human being, and gets insight into why they behave how they do. Lord of the Flies supports Schopenhauer’s notion that, “Man is at bottom a wild and terrible animal. We know him [man] only as what civilization has trained him… but when the locks and chains of law and order are castoff… he shows himself for what he really is”. This behavioral change is vivid in Jack, Ralph, and Piggy, where each one of them displays their true selves when society is suddenly stripped of all order and stability.
Jack, the boys’ choir leader, displays the largest leap towards savagery as soon as he is liberated from shame and self-consciousness. Soon after the boys were deserted on the island, Jack switches to his hidden animalistic traits to find food for the tribe. Instinctively, Jack falls to his hands and knees, and smells the pigs’ feces. He tells the group that, “the droppings were warm. They lay piled up among the earth” (49). Jack’s qualities show how quickly he resorts to a primitive hunting manner as soon as traditional authority is abolished. Jack also displays these inner traits when he and his hunters ruthlessly kill a mother pig for nothing but game. As the other boys were chasing the mother pig, hoping to spear her to death, Jack was, “wedded to her lust, excited by the long chase and the dropped blood” (135). Jack detaches himself from all morals he gained in the outside world, and behaves so barbaric that one could relate his behavior to that of rape. Jack’s inner beast is again shown is when he orders the litluns to be beaten by the biguns, and then thrown in a cave. Though there are no reasons for their beatings, Jack feels the need to show his authority to the rest of his tribe, as well as to Ralph. For the first time, he feels empowered and unrestrained, and wastes no time using his newfound freedom.
Ralph, the...
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