...regress to their savage beginnings. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies explores the theme of civilization to savagery through the usage of symbolism to portray the premise that children are savages by nature and without adult guidance or supervision; their entire darker side will manifest itself in full force. The consequential regression of the boys from civilization to savagery is symbolized by the use of the conch, fire, and Piggy’s glasses. First of all, the conch shell manages to demonstrate civilization to savagery through its ability to establish order to build a civilization, lose its power and deteriorate civilization, and shatter to eliminate civilization. In the beginning, the conch is used to establish and uphold order and peace on the island, playing a key role in forming and maintaining a civilization. Ralph uses the conch and his leadership to summon the others, have meetings and delegate positions, assign power, and set rules such as: “[Giving] the conch to the next person to speak” (Golding 31). By adhering to the set of rules regarding the conch shell, the boys still maintain their civilized way of living back at home where there is the existence of government and laws to be adhered to regarding to the existence of social order. However, as time passes by, the conch begins to lose its power and significance and boys begin to succumb to savagery. When Ralph tries to convince the other boys to return to his tribe instead of joining Jack’s tribe by appealing...
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...there is no beast and the island can make some progress. The fear of the beast has been haunting the island and disrupting their society. The boys are terrified of the beast, and that fear slows them down by allowing them to put their efforts into a non existent cause: killing or appeasing the beast. Simon sees this and knows the truth. There is no beast because the beast is within everyone. Evil is within everyone. The Lord of the Flies is Satan, and humans project all their evil onto Satan. By putting their evil onto another being, they are excusing themselves from their evil. The flaw of humans is the beast, and the beast is humans. Being human is an inherent flaw because humans are not wholly good. There is evil in a human, a natural savagery, that is there no matter what mask of civility is...
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...In Lord of the Flies, the general boys, at first, are afraid of the unknown and deaths. After Jack becomes the chief and forms his tribe, Jack and Roger’s violence becomes the general fear. The main characters also have their own fears. Ralph and Piggy are afraid of the loss of civilisation, the collapse of law and order. Piggy is also afraid of the loss of democracy and not being able to see clear. Jack is afraid of being overpowered by the power of civilisation. Simon is afraid of savagery. For Golding, he is afraid of the evil human nature and people’s misunderstanding that evil is from elsewhere instead of within ourselves. He is also afraid that savagery would defeat civilisation as well as evil defeating goodness and dictatorship defeating democracy. In general, the boys’ fears can be divided into 2 parts, one is when they first get onto the island and the other one is after Jack has formed his tribe. The boys are afraid of the unknown. The boy with a mulberry birthmark on his face claims that there is a ‘snake’, or a ‘beastie’ as he later calls it, as early as in Chapter 2. When they first arrived at the island, everything is unclear and unsafe, and even overwhelming. The unstable situation arouses fear. It is the human instinct to be afraid of something that we do not know. The boy with a birthmark gives the fear of the unknown a more concrete image as a beast. The fear of the unknown is then turned into the fear of the beast. The boys are still rational when they first...
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...Theme Essay “Society holds everyone together.” In the book The Lord of the Flies, a fictional novel written by William Golding, it tells about the story of plan crashed british boys who must try and survive and fight off the savage instincts. The theme society holds everyone together is shown throughout the book. Society holding everyone together goes along with the idea of Civilization and savagery effects.. Basically the book is how savagery can affect people differently, also how civilization keeps people together for any amount of time, and finally how savagery can kill people. Savagery affects the characters differently. The character, Piggy follows his morals and stays civilized as much as possible. In fact...
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...The Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel in which the theme of savagery versus civilisation is explored. Some British boys are stranded on an isolated island at the time of an imaginary nuclear war. On the island we see conflict between two main characters, Jack and Ralph, who respectively represent civilisation and savagery. This has an effect on the rest of the boys throughout the novel as they delve further and further into savagery. The theme of savagery versus civilisation is first introduced to us through the symbol of the conch shell which we associate with Ralph as he is the person who first uses it and becomes the elected leader of the boys. This symbolises authority amongst the boys. At the first assembly Ralph says “I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak…he won’t be interrupted”. This suggests civilisation as Ralph is allowing each boy to have an equal say and opinion. If they have the conch, no matter who they are or what age they are they will be given the chance to speak and will be listened to by the rest of the boys. The boys have created the island to be a democratic place which shows a civilised side to them as they try to mimic the homes they have just left. Contrasting with the symbol of the conch is the symbol of the beast which comes to be associated with Jack as by the end of the novel he is almost devil worshipping it. The beast begins as a “snake thing” but by the end of the novel it has become “the...
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...given and fear. When the inner nature of man is allowed to come through, it manifests itself in the form of savagery and the beast. The first way we can see the boys overriding civilisation is when they first they realise there are no adults and that they have unlimited freedom, 'the fair boy said this solemnly; but then the delight of a realised ambition overcame him', the contrast between 'solemnly' and 'delight' whilst being very close together shows how easily and quickly they are letting their ambition overtake their initial views and ideas. Ralph has the ambition to control the island, whilst Ralph holds onto civilisation we can see that his ambition is very primal and this ambition comes from the freedom. Piggy contrasts to the idea of the lack of adults being a good thing, "Grownups know things," said Piggy. "They ain't afraid of the dark. They'd meet and have tea and discuss. Then things 'ud be all right-", the use of tea whilst describing the adults show that Piggy thinks that adults are a sign of civilisation. This shows us that Piggy believes that freedom isn't a good thing and that the boys cannot be trusted with it, Piggy likes the rules and order of civilisation and this is what stops him from being a savage. This also leads onto the fact that Piggy is constantly excluded, Piggy does not want the power, he just wants to be heard but he is a follower. Piggy does not have to need to control and this also stops him from becoming a savage. The boys want to act as adults...
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...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”’...
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...Is humanity good or evil? This argument has been going on since the enlightenment period. Rousseau theorized that man essentially come to this world god, but gets corrupted throughout experiences, in other words, we are nobles savages that gets corrupted through our livings. In the novel Lord of The Flies, by William Golding demonstrates that the isolated boys on the island get corrupted through their primal instincts of their savagery. The savagery that are explained in the novel, are divided into three levels, first level is the good potential, next is experience, and the final stage is savagery. First of all, in the novel the kids are full of pride and full of education and morality. The oldest boy out of all is 12 years old, which is a good year for knowing how the world works around them and how to behave properly. Through the supervision when the boys were back in England, they describe themselves as noble beings. “’We’ve [the boys] got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re [the boys] not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything.’” (40). in this discussion, Jack Merridew, the choir boy implies their pride of being English and that they should not spoil themselves from nobility to savages. There is irony used because throughout the plot summary, Jack Merridew becomes the most cruel out of all the boys, and him saying of that they are ‘not savages’ gives an ironic effect. It wasn’t just the authorization and rules that are mentioned, but...
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...It is important that everyday we try and evaluate decisions that benefit us, as well others. Innocence is something we are born with and can be defined as freedom from sin, moral wrong, lack of purity or corruption. However, things that we possess can also be lost and or taken away including our innocence. A novel that demonstrates a vast loss of innocence is in Lord of the Flies written by William Goulding. Innocence in the novel is present in many of the characters but slowly begins to deteriorate over time due to the lack of maturity and discipline from their lives, which is replaced with violence and savagery....
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...Innate evil resides in all humans no matter age, gender, race or religion. Evil within us since our birth and will stay with us until the day we die. William Golding’s Lord of the flies has a great depiction what happens to a group of boy’s transformation to savagery and how they are able to release their inner evils when exposed to a certain environment or situation. Cut off from the outside world and trapped on an island, the boys, once civilized and innocent begin perform more savage actions in order to survive, increasing their hostility towards others showing that all humans are plagued with a natural evil. By examining the death of the two boys, Jack’s role of the hunter (and how this has driven him to savagery) and the lord of the flies (also known as the beast), we can...
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...By likening the group of boys to a creature, Golding is foreshadowing that the specific group of boys will become a force of savagery. The quote creates a mood of mysteriousness and suspense as the boys change from an unknown monster to a group of boys. Due to the boys walking and being dressed in an orderly fashion, the group contrasts with the setting of a savage island. The author chooses to emphasize the heat because it will be a continual challenge for the boys. Because the boys are British, the group is not used to excessive heat. By comparing the heat to a continual challenge, the author foreshadows the difficulties that the boys will face. The boys strip off their clothes to express their new freedom. Because no one is there to...
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...The conch in Lord of the Flies directly symbolizes the fall of order that a civilization provides. When Ralph and Piggy are strolling down the beach and formulating a plan of action, they stop to salvage a shiny object from a lagoon. This object turns out to be a conch shell, and Piggy insightfully exclaims, “‘[w]e can use this to call the others. Have a meeting. They’ll come when they hear us-’ He beamed at Ralph. ‘That was what you meant, didn’t you? That’s why you got the conch out of the water?’” (Golding 16). Piggy’s idea demonstrates the...
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...represents the conscious. Even though Simon is one of the younger boys, he has a sort of wisdom that even the older characters do not possess. Compared to the other boys, he is more in tune with himself and his surroundings, especially in a natural environment. While the others seem to ponder their stresses about what may lurk in the woods, Simon offers a different perspective when “he turned his back on this and walked into the forest with an air of purpose,” (Golding 55). Simon comes to terms with the simplicity and beauty that the forest embodies, as he walks “with an accustomed tread through the acres of fruit trees, where the least energetic could find an easy if unsatisfying meal,” (Golding 56). While the other boys come to portray savagery, Simon is one of the characters that represents goodness. When he walks through the forest, he is not concerned, like the others are, about a beast lurking among the trees. This spiritual goodness is connected to nature, which is pure, clean and earthy, which is Golding’s purpose. A similar idea is presented in the article “Men of a Smaller Growth: A Psychological Analysis of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies,” written by Claire Rosenfield. The text explains that, by finding the pig’s head, Simon learns that “it is the Beast, and the Beast cannot be hunted because it is within,” (Golding 26). Again, this expresses Simon’s spiritual connection that he has in the novel. Unlike the others, Simon is able to connect with an incorporeal existence...
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...to maximize their chances of being rescued. For this reason, Ralph’s power and influence over the other boys are secure at the beginning of the novel. However, as the group gradually succumbs to savage instincts over the course of the novel, Ralph’s position declines precipitously while Jack’s rises. Eventually, most of the boys except Piggy leave Ralph’s group for Jack’s, and Ralph is left alone to be hunted by Jack’s tribe. Ralph’s commitment to civilization and morality is strong, and his main wish is to be rescued and returned to the society of adults. In a sense, this strength gives Ralph a moral victory at the end of the novel, when he casts the Lord of the Flies to the ground and takes up the stake it is impaled on to defend himself against Jack’s hunters. In the earlier parts of the novel, Ralph is unable to understand why the other boys would give in to base instincts of bloodlust and barbarism. The sight of the hunters chanting and dancing is baffling and distasteful to him. As the novel progresses, however, Ralph, like Simon, comes to understand that savagery exists within all the boys. Ralph remains determined not to let this savagery -overwhelm him, and only briefly does he consider joining Jack’s tribe in order to save himself. When Ralph hunts a boar for the first time, however, he experiences the exhilaration and thrill of bloodlust and violence. When he attends Jack’s feast, he...
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...One of the main themes in William Golding's Lord of the Flies is the struggle between Society and Savagery. The boys' first intention on the island is to create a society based on the one they had in the adult world: one with rules, limitations and order. But at the same time, they want to have fun. As time progresses, they start ignoring the rules that they had originally set. Instead of using the designated lavatory stones for bathroom purposes, they start using the bathroom wherever they want, even near their special meeting place. The shelters that they all intended on helping to build end up being built by only a few of the boys and therefore, are not as sturdy as they could have been. According to Henri Talon, "[The boys] planned order and allowed disorder to settle" (Talon). The longer they stayed on the island, the more they lost touch with the boundaries set by society, and they eventually started to resort to primitive behavior. Throughout the novel, each of the boys struggles to keep remnants of society in tact, while their primitive nature tries to reel them into savagery. Some of the boys give into their primitive behavior very quickly, while others strive to hold on to their civility as long as possible. This struggle is portrayed masterfully by Golding who uses symbolism to enhance the reader's understanding of it. The first prominent symbol of society that we see is the conch shell that Ralph finds near the shore at the beginning of the novel. Upon Piggy's suggestion...
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