Lord Of The Flies Savagery Essay
The characters loss of identity is a predominant theme of the book. Discuss each of the main characters loss of identity as the book progresses and how this brings the devastation in the book.
The novel ‘lord of the flies’ by William Golding, is a story about a group of boys stranded on an island during the nuclear war. The novel clearly shows the slow decent to savagery from the boys and the forces of civilisation and society that condemn people. Golding attempts to portray to the reader that there is potential evil is everyone. The main characters in the novel are Ralph, Jack and Simon. They all shows aspects of being leaders but as the novel continues, the reader starts to see the differences between the boys and their desires for power, dictatorship and control. Elements of savagery slowly arise throughout all the boys, some more obvious than others, but present all the same.
Ralph is essentially portrayed as the protagonist of the novel. At first, he is voted in as chief and primarily represents civilisation, order and leadership. His main objective is to build huts and maximise the boy’s chances of getting home. As the novel continues, jack starts to create his own tribe of hunters, purely concerned with killing and feeding their inner “beast”. Ralph cannot understand why these intelligent young boys would give into this barbarism instinct. The sight of jack and the boys dancing and chanting around the fire initially sickens him but he finds himself half interested in the event ‘Ralph and Piggy found were half-drawn in… Ralph dribbled... He accepted the piece of half-raw meat and gnawed it like a wolf’[i]. This shows Ralph’s savage nature and reinforces Golding’s point that all human have savage instinct in them. As the novel goes on, Ralph realises the savageness in all the boys. As he fights to contain this new feeling from showing in himself, he is beaten by the bloodlust hidden in him. He briefly considers joining Jack’s tribe purely to save...
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