Lord of the Flies

Essay

        “Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of a true, wise friend called Piggy.”

Lord of the Flies is a novel that explores instinctive human evil.  At the end of the novel, Ralph realizes his loss of innocence and the evil that exists in each and every human being.  This is portrayed in the above quote.  In this novel, William Golding writes about the human struggle to be civilized such as obeying laws and to act morally, or to be savage by using power with evil, acting selfishly and being violent.

The novel starts off with young British schoolboys unexpectedly arriving on a stranded island after their plane crashes.  Two of the main characters, Ralph and Piggy, find a conch shell on the beach and use it to gather all the boys in an assembly.  Ralph is appointed as the Chief and Jack is appointed as the leader of the hunters.  The first weeks were well; everyone cooperated with each other and mostly contributed to the common good of everyone.  One day, Ralph noticed a ship in the horizon and realized that the signal fire was out.  The signal fire was to be maintained by the hunters, but Jack had taken them all on a hunt.  Jack, angered by the accusations of Ralph, left the group and created his own tribe.  The members of Jack’s tribe grew very savage and violently killed a pig, offering its head as an offering to the Beast.  Simon realized that there was no beast on the island, but only the evil that existed in each human being.  He went to tell everyone this realization only to be killed savagely by Jack’s tribe, thinking that he was the Beast.  Ralph and his very small tribe were attacked the very next day by Jack and Piggy’s glasses were stolen.  Piggy was then killed by a boulder landing on him and the conch shell was destroyed, signifying the end of civilized distinct.  Ralph was hunted by Jack’s tribe and eventually he discovered a naval officer on the beach.  The officer’s ship had noticed the fire in the jungle that was created by Jack.  Ralph realized that he was safe, but began to sob after thinking about the events that had occurred on the island.

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  In order for the entire plot to take place, the fact that the boys are stuck on a stranded island with no adults or civilization is extremely important.  Lord of the Flies is set on a deserted island during a war.  The schoolboys were being flown out to safety because of the war, but they crash-landed onto this unknown island.  Each part of the island holds a significant importance in the development of the novel.  The boys used the mountain as the place for the signal fire, the beach for building houses, the platform for holding assemblies and ...

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