Good or Evil? The Fight For Dominance

The fierce battle between the lightness and darkness of man’s heart has coexisted since the earliest of times. William Golding’s award-winning novel, Lord of the Flies, is one that captures this very judgment. A group of young British schoolboys who were once innocent and pure of heart are quickly devoured by the dark powers of destruction, savagery, and murder. However, even with these destructive powers at hand, the young schoolboys along with their distant memories of being in a civilized society, fight in an epic battle to try and prevent the full outbreak of evil. Golding illustrates the never-ending combat of “good” and “evil”, amidst the young schoolboys and the Beast; Ralph, the democratic leader, contrary to Jack, who favoured dictatorship; and the strength of civilization versus the forces of human nature. First and foremost, the story displays the constant conflicts between the innocence of the British schoolboys and the dark nature of what they come to know as the Beast. An example of this is when the twins Sam and Eric encounter the Beast in Chapter Six: "Beast From Air." In the beginning of the chapter, Sam and Eric, who were on duty to watch the fire, falls asleep as a dead parachutist falls from the war in the adult world and lands on the island. When they awake from their sleep, they noticed a “figure that hung with dangling limbs” (103) and mistake it as the Beast. Sam describes to Ralph that the Beast was ‘“furry”’ and that ‘“there was something moving behind its head – wings”’ (108). By recalling the terrifying image, Golding demonstrates how fear of the unknown can manipulate the twins into thinking that the dead parachutist was the Beast; and how the barrier of a civilized society was slowly diminishing. The novel also describes young Simon and his encounter with the “Lord of the Flies” in Chapter