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Weiming Huang

Ms. Day

British literature

7 October 2018

Lord of the flies is a philosophical fable novel that was written by British writer William

Golding. The novel explores human’s pugnacity from Children’s prospective and aims to reveal

the evil of human nature. Golding was born on 1911; his whole life experience two world war,

both two world war affected his life, especially world war II. Not only the two world wars

caused significant physical damage to the world, at the same time, more is to make people’s

hearts suffered serious trauma. Golding lives in thinking about the human nature, in Lord of the

flies, he writes what happens between a group of children to prove that there is evil in human

nature. He tries to tell people to pay attention to the defects of the human nature and appeal to

people to purify their mind.

The general plot of the story tells a group gathering in an isolated island, because of

aircraft accident. They are led by Ralph, with "conch" as the command. Jack later led the whole

team of "hunters" to join in, and then a series of incredible stories happened. At the beginning of

the struggle for the leader, Ralph won with his accumulated popularity, and Jack reluctantly

agreed. But then, they felt restricted in their freedom of movement, because everyone wanted to

run away from their posts to play, and everything was no longer good as they promised. Starting

from the hunting of Jack with his band, they experienced the thrill of hunting and the eating

meat. They gradually got out of control and sought to hunt the wild boar. Ralph, on the other

hand, urged everyone to finish the assigned task. He also argued that the campfire must not be
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allowed to go out, for smoke is the only hope that could sends a message of help. Of course, they

also wanted to go home and did not want to live on the island for the rest of their lives. The two

leaders began to fall apart due to their different purposes of action, and finally Ralph and piggy

were beaten by Jack and Roger. Later, Jack's faction began to harass the Ralph's party; they stole

the fire and piggy's eyeglasses which were broken by Jack. Piggy was so angry that he dared to

find them, however, he was killed by a boulder accidentally rolled down from the top mountain.

Eventually, Ralph and the few remaining men from his faction bowed their heads in front of Jack

and tasted a big meal of meat, but in the end, Ralph did not join into the hunters and became the

only rebel of Jack and hunters. After deciding it was necessary to get rid of Ralph and Roger, the

distinguished representative of the hunters sharpened the two ends of the stick fiercely and

prepared to deal with Ralph by the same means as the boar. Therefore, the childlike innocence of

the children was completely lost. When civilization began to lose its original reason and order,

there were not rules of discipline, mutual aid, and cooperation; they completely degenerated into

a group of bloodthirsty "beasts". Poor Ralph was chased around by hunters with no place to hide

until the royal navy ship came to the rescue on the island. At the end of the story, the island

presents such a sad scene: "the island was scorched up like dead wood", "Ralph wept for the end

of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart." In the end, the story also ends with the Jack

authoritarianism overpowering the governance-oriented democracy led by Ralph.

At the age of 12, Golding attempted, unsuccessfully, to write a novel. He often hurt

others to vent his anger, as he said: “I enjoyed hurting people.” This life experience also bred the

character Jack in the Lord of the flies. This novel is not only an appeal to all human, but also an

introspection of Golding. By describing Jack as an aggressive person, he alludes to inner evil in

his mind. After college, Golding worked in settlement houses and the theater for a time.
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Eventually, he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. In 1935 Golding took a position

teaching English and philosophy at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury. Golding’s

experience teaching unruly young boys would later serve as inspiration for his novel Lord of the

Flies.

Although passionate about teaching from day one, in 1940 Golding temporarily

abandoned the profession to join the Royal Navy and fight in World War II.(William Golding

Limited, “About William Golding”)

“Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!”

The blue-white scar was constant, the noise unendurable. Simon was crying out

something about a dead man on a hill.

“Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!”

The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed. The beast

was on its knees in the center, its arms folded over its face. It was crying out

against the abominable noise something about a body on the hill. The beast

struggled forward, broke the ring and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the

sand by the water. At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt

on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no

movements but the tearing of teeth and claws. (Golding 154)

This scenario describes a party celebrating the success of hunting wild boar by Jack’s faction.

They danced and shouted the slogan which is “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do

him in!” in the party, for they tried to mask their fear of the “beast” with carnal revelry. After

that, they played a game in which one person portrayed a wild boar and the others hunted him.

As the game went on, the children became more and more engaged, and the slogans became
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more and more consistent. In this environment, primitive savagery is stimulated. Suddenly, a

dark shadow emerged from the forest. The children shouted like mad: the beast is coming. They

didn't know it was Simon. Simon, a very simple and kind person, did not want to participate in

the struggle of rights. He was stabbed to death by a pile of spears; his whole body became

discomfited, in a thunderbolt night was killed by the group of children as wild beasts. As

described in the passage: “At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to

the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore.” (Golding 154)When we became aware of this, but each

other did not know the cover-up, the innocence of those kids began to die. The children didn't

realize they had killed someone. In connection with the author's experience in the second world

war, Germany and Japan in the second world war are just like this. Under such extreme

fanaticism, originally kind citizens have unconsciously turned into executioners with their hands

full of blood. In one detail, Jack and his faction usually did face painting before hunting, so when

they look at their reflection in the water, they did not see themselves but a terrible stranger.

When one puts on a mask, the one loses self-consciousness and does something what he wants.

This also alluded to the soldiers that served to Germany and Japan’s government. When these

soldiers worn their uniform, they could not realize that they are themselves, but a part of

collective. What you do individually is not what you do individually; it's what you do

collectively. What you do individually is not responsible; collective is responsible. The

restriction to the evil in people's hearts seem so shaky in this collective system. Shouting slogan

is the same thing which is used to obliterate the existence of rational individualism, so that in this

way one can get rid of the control of the good in one's heart and do some horrible things. Back to

Simon, in the Lord of the flies, he is like a prophet or a saint. He has extraordinary insight and

integrity. He represents a kind of spiritual innate goodness in human nature. When everyone else
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deviated from the norm, Simon acted morally, not out of timidity, but because he believes in the

intrinsic value of morality. He was the only one who dared to discover the truth and to break the

fear; finally, he found that “the beast” is just a corpse of pilot. However, when he wanted to go

back and tell everyone the news, he was considered as a beast.

At the last of novel, the author ends the novel with “a trim cruiser” (Golding 202)to

imply that the war is not over in adults’ world. Golding believes that human nature has two sides,

there are both good side and evil side; there are both creative and destructive. Generally, he holds

a negative attitude towards human beings, believing that the destructive nature of human beings

will lead to their own destruction. People are corrupt, the world is not peaceful, the victory of

evil over justice, the triumph of barbarism over civilization examples are too numerous in human

history. Like the Democratic Party of Ralph in the book, even though democracy and freedom

are all human desires, they still cannot solve practical problems. Democracy and freedom are

weak when food and clothing are not available. The children were attracted to jack's meat, which

tells the same question. Because it takes advantage of the short-sighted and emotional nature of

human nature, can you say that this is the inherent evil of human nature? I don't think that as a

human can judge this issue.

Works Cited

Grove, Lloyd. “Golding: Lord of the Novel” The Washington Post, 12 January 1986,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1986/01/12/golding-lord-of-the-

novel/274c53ca-e802-4f4a-94b0-8246563f6223/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.13e27f126cce

“About William Golding” William Golding, William Golding Limited,

http://www.william-golding.co.uk/about-william-golding

“William Golding” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Golding

Golding, William. Lord of the flies. Penguin Books, 16 December 2003.