William Golding wanted to investigate the evil side in everyone, he wanted to see what boundaries in society hold them back from acting how they wish. It displays the descent boys into savagery or the boys and the demolition of democracy on the island. In Lord Of The Flies, William Golding takes the most innocent and influenced age of young British school boys (age 6-12), to see how they would break the boundaries which which surround them, when nothing hods them back; when they are free.
William Golding dramatizes the conflict between two opposite beings, the civil belonging that guides people to live peacefully, the right to obey orders and rules in life and the instinct to obtain superiority and power over others around them. In Lord Of The Flies, the majority of the young boys act beyond what any civilized being would expect; becoming violent, savage killers. The only boys that keep civilized and intelligent to their surroundings are: Ralph, Piggy and Simon.In the novel the reader does not only learn about the boundaries in humanity, but can also relate to them, and also makes them think how they would act/what they would become, if they were free from all restraints in life. William Golding suggests that an evil personality is deep in everyone and are only held back by the stone laws of society. As the boys crash on the island, they are shocked and do not know where they are, and what they should do first.
As any young by would, without his parents and anyone to tell him not to, they enjoy their first, of many days on the island: swimming, play fighting, building sand castles and laughing.When the sun corrodes and the bats come out, all the boys are scared and alone. Everyday they young boys call a meeting/assembly to sort out their queries and arguments, and soon after many assemblies, they all begin to take sides against each other, with Ralph - the Democratic Leader, and Jack - the Fascist leader and hunter. The democratic society on the island does not last long as the boys feel free to do what they want, and gain a lack of respect towards anyone else on the island (especially Jack and his hunters).
Gradually after a few weeks of being on the Island, the boys start to experience the negative impacts of the living by themselves. Their diet mostly consists of fruit and is therefore effecting their health and with no social support from their parents, they start to find it very difficult to keep as a pack - “They were used to stomach-aches and a sort of chronic diarrhea”. The younger boys on the island, known as the ‘‘Littleluns” try to busy themselves as they soon become homesick, with activities and game playing.The older boys called the “Bigguns” are very dominating and unfair with the littleluns and become destructive to what they do “Roger led the way straight through the castles, kicking them over, burying the flowers, scattering the chosen stones”.
Ralph realizes that the order and civilization of the boys is starting to collapse, and calls an assembly to reiterate the important sections whilst being on the island. Once the assembly is in order, there is concern raised from one of the younger boys about a beast on the island.Most of the boys laugh and joke about there being such a thing but as the night falls, there is fear upon their faces. The hunters killed and ate boars or pigs to show their true evilness, and after their killing of one black pig, they cut the head off and placed it onto the top of a spear and left it to rot and collect flies to show their willing to savagery. The pigs head was described as the ‘Lord of The Flies’ and was to display a satan like being. As their lives continue on the island, the boys become more and more savage towards each other, and the animals on the island, this results in the killing of two boys (Piggy and Simon).
Their fear and deranged becoming, whilst on the island took over each of the boys inner self and righteous being, which led them to destroying their friendship and progressing to murdering two innocent boys. This clearly showed that the boys had no self conciseness and turned completely barbaric towards anything. During the story, all the characters are referred to as symbolizing certain things in life. William Golding uses symbolism to display his belief of nature and mankind, and shows that the change from good to evil is unavoidable if there is no direct authority over people.Ralph is known as being the Democratic leader and is by far the best leader of them all even though the other boys cannot see it.
He stays very fair and true to the rules on the island. The change from good to evil of the boys is shown by how they elect Ralph their leader at the start but soon change sides to Jack who is the complete opposite. At the start of the story Jack agrees with the others and follows rules but shortly decides that he could have more power over the boys and could run their lives.Even when he becomes the savage hunter he still seems unsure to killing a living creature and seems worried off what the boys may think of him, but soon after, he overcomes that fear and is able to become brutal and destructive to anything.
Piggy, who is known as being physically unfit and has poor vision, but is the most intelligent of all the boys, struggles in telling his side of the story. He is unable to speak out as he feels under the palm of Jack, who through the story picks on him, and destroys his life. The reader can understand by his description that he is incompetent and finds his time on the island very difficult.Simon’s symbol in the story is that of a Christ-like figure who sees the truth, but is killed because of ignorance. He is known as being in touch with nature and has the knowledge of how to survive on the island, but rarely speaks his mind to anyone.
Throughout the story, William Golding was trying to figure out if there was an evil personality in everyone and has clearly discovered that there is. As you could see from start to end of the story, the only thing that keep people civilized in life, are the restraints of society.
