Introduction
World wars became the reason why a man was considered a savage. My friend’s family still does not live according to the rule of partnership that is promoted and used today but follows the rules of patriarchy. They faced a backlash when their son went to school and started humiliating the female part of the teaching staff and the children, which is not ethically correct according to the moral norms of contemporary society.
William Golding’s literary work Lord of the Flies, which will be analyzed in this essay, provides an insightful understanding of human behavior. Following the plot, man is, by nature, a savage and prone to evil; however, such generalization is simplified to the point that man becomes a savage not because of his nature but due to his surroundings.
The Novel Analysis
The application of Jack’s character’s change in Lord of the Flies is one of the many details the author uses to try to understand that all people, especially men, are savages by nature. At the novel’s beginning, Jack desires power, and he becomes furious only because he does not get the role of boss. However, for some period, he felt the moral sense and discipline that civilization had taught him.
For example, “We must have rules and obey them. We’re not savages after all” (Golding 42), Jack said in the book about bringing order to the group early on. This quote proves that the protagonist understands the need to restore order, something instilled in him by being in society. When a boy first encounters a pig, he fails to kill it. Then, the boy devotes himself to learning how to hunt and trying to kill a pig, which shows his character’s change significantly from the beginning, slowly drifting towards savagery because he feels delight in killing pigs. Over time, such cruel behavior affected the whole group, as he, together with others, killed Simon, the first character in the work who realized that barbarism is what descended into them; it is only a part of human nature.
Lord of the Flies contains Golding’s subjective view that people of all ages are prone to be evil. However, a person’s nature affects their behavior to a lesser extent; the environment plays a more significant role. Golding’s position is entirely subjective and one-sided. Man becomes wild not because it is inherent but because he moves away from civilization. For example, some African tribes still perform sacrificial rites and live in an environment with a leader, and everyone obeys him. However, they live this way not because it is inherent but because they live in an environment that promotes this way of life.
Golding, in his novel, shows several schoolchildren who transform into a group of uncivilized human beings due to life on a deserted island. The situation in society, which no longer has rules, has dramatically changed boys’ behavior. Accordingly, the author’s argument that man is wild by nature is not universal since people living in civilized societies do not show signs of wildness.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this essay aims to reveal whether the man in nature is a savage considering the context of Golding’s story. The fact that man is not wild by nature but can become so by living or being born outside of civilization partially negates the author’s argument that all people are prone to evil. The question of human nature is ambiguous and philosophical. Depending on the answers to the question, what is most inherent in human nature? Is it good or evil? — concepts of the meaning of life, an ideal society, and principles of a virtuous life are being developed. Therefore, another opinion regarding Golding’s position affects the understanding that it is impossible to generalize all people under one marker.
Work Cited
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies, Faber & Faber, 1954. Web.