Immorality in Lord of the Flies by William Golding Essay Sample

📌Category: Books, Lord of the Flies, William Golding, Writers
📌Words: 518
📌Pages: 2
📌Published: 15 June 2022

Lord of the flies, by William Golding, is a dystopian novel, set during a nuclear war in the 1950s. A fleeing plane crash lands on an island, none of the adults survive, and the kids are left to fend for themselves. At first, the kids think of the island as a utopian paradise. but their fantasy soon fades as they realize the consequences of the anarchy. Golding uses children in a time of tribulation and terror, to represent what the most “innocent” would do. Which in the midst ultimately reveals the evil that even the most innocent innately have. Some examples of this are; Jack hunting the pig, Simon being killed, and when they are rescued.

From the beginning until the end of the book, Jack wants power by any means necessary, which is why he becomes obsessed with hunting. Not only for meat but just for the sheer thrill of it. After Jack had killed the pig, he and the others started a gruesome chant, “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.” (Golding 69) This chant introduces the underlying cruelty the boys have. They’re not just hunting for survival at this point but as a game. Although Jack is one of the most vivid portrayals of evil in Lord of the flies, most of the boys still see him as a leader, which depicts the immorality in almost all of them. This “game” may seem relatively harmless at first but ultimately evolves into a brutal manhunt.

Another example of this theme is Simon being killed. After seeing the parachuter, Simon walks back down the mountain to inform the boys of the mistaken beast. While the others are caught up in their frenzy of chanting and dancing, they see a shadowy figure creep out from the forest. Thinking of him to be the beast the boys start to shout their grisly chant once again, making Simon the center of the horseshoe, beating, and eventually killing him. The author wrote, “Even in the rain they could see how small a beast it was; and already its blood was staining the sand.” (Golding 153) Now that Simon is dead, their sense of rationality is too. All of the boys had participated, even Piggy and Ralph, who are supposed to be virtuous of the group. 

The last example is when the boys are being rescued from the island. The boys tell the officer that two had been killed during their war, and he almost seems astonished. Golding wrote, “‘I should have thought,’ said the officer as he visualized the search before him, ‘I should have thought that a pack British boys-you’re all British, aren’t you?- would have been able to put up a better show than that-I mean-’”  (Golding 202). The officer sanctimoniously critiques the boys, as if there is not a nuclear war going on with the adults. Golding concludes Lord of the Flies by showing immorality, within everyone, not just in boys who’ve been stranded on an island. 

Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, indicates that everyone has some immorality within them, even the most innocent. Jack hunting the pig, Simon being killed, and the boys being rescued, are all examples of this theme. By the end of Lord of the Flies Golding shows the readers that all of civilization is like one giant island of chaos.

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