Lord Of The Flies Essay

Deficits of Society traced to the Deficits in Human Nature.

"Lord of the Flies", a novel by William Golding, is in reality an allegory were the deficits of society are traced to the deficits in human nature. The book is mainly about a group of children that are left to their own means after crashing in a virgin island during World War II, representing society as a whole in the children's. Thedestruction of society in the novel is seen by means of a fight of power, the dark side of human nature and fright towards the unknown. These factors are some of the themes described in the novel, that can also be analyzed in a general way in society, the characters, happenings and motifs are all used as illustrating examples to the real society as whole showing mostly the flaws of mankind,reason why it is complex allegoric novel.

The fight for power is seen in two of the major characters: Ralph and Jack, representing democracy and tyranny. The struggle for power is seen since the beginning of the novel, developing as the plot continues while breaking apart the society the kid's started to build, this because it broke the society into two, leaving the children to choose who tofollow. The way Ralph chose to lead was by communication and team work with only one purpose, waiting to be rescued, while on the other hand Jack wants to seize power and lead with brute force and intimidation, in an authoritarian government. Jack and the choir were the hunters, the suppliers of food, the ones who seemed to be the strongest and over all the group that may be seen as protectors, this isimportant because it represent the power of supply, Jack supplies food and the children follow him just as the general populations follows those who supply them, by means of need or greed, just like monopolies are formed, extinguishing the small business or making them sign up with them to monopolize an area or product, thus having more power and influence. While the fight for power is remarked inthe characters of Ralph and Jack, it is also present in Piggy and Roger, for as the plot goes on we are able to see how Roger becomes power hungry, wanting to have another coup d'etat of sorts, just like Jack did, and for this he kills Piggy and hunts Ralph, this can be seen as how greed won over intellect and order, how the government of Ralph was all about having a shadow of the adult world,full of rules and order looking forward to rescue, while Jack's is all about savagery, the only goal being the immediate satisfaction, even to the point were they forget what rescue and civilization mean. The killing of Piggy, the dead of intellect, shows how truly the society has been broken apart into a primitive one. All this is a role of power, leadership, the need to follow someone and havesome kind of structure, the novel started with the building of a society and ended in brutal anarchy by blood lust, greed and violence.

The fright towards the unknown is also shown here, seen clearly in the figures of the beasts, symbols that represent the need for humans to make up something, anything, in order to cope with difficult things reason can't help with, and also representing the evilwithin human's heart, for the actual beast resides within men. The snakes, the pilot's corpse and the Lord of the Flies are seen as beast all throughout the novel, frightening the kids, making them have nightmares, be paranoid, be religious, for they make up a mythology, creations demons and deities out of their surrounding and their imagination. The further employment of rituals and chants revealsthe start of a religious service, the worshiping and complete submissiveness to powers created by the children to explain things they don't understand, this allows us to compare the kid's society to a primitive one, how they return to their roots, in a contra evolution, becoming more and more savages as the novel progresses, thus making them more vulnerable to superstition, more far away from...