Violence and Power in Lord of the Flies by William Golding (Book Analysis)

📌Category: Books, Lord of the Flies, William Golding, Writers
📌Words: 616
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 16 February 2022

What are the roots of violence and the need for power in today's society, abuse, weapons, media? It would certainly not be children. That was precisely what William Golding illustrates in his book Lord of the Flies. Six young boys stranded on an island with no grown-up insight having to learn survival skills. As always, survival comes with its challenges. Slowly the boys slip into violence and power hunger tendencies and break up their newly founded society. In the book Lord of the flies, William Golding shines a light on the root of breaking up society on the island through the boys' power-hunger and violent tendencies.

The group's root breaking up was the tension in the power-hunger dynamic between Ralph and Jack. The group had just killed the first pig, and Jack started to not listen to Ralph and started disobeying him: "you let the fire out" (Golding 69). By Jack letting "the fire" go how he realizes the power that he can hold over Ralph just by not doing simple tasks and helping him around the island. Jack begins to realize how much he would rather be in power rather than Ralph controlling him and telling him everything he should. After much more fighting, Jack finally decides: "I'm not going to play any longer with you" (Golding 127). Jack no longer wants to "play" by Ralph's rules. After another humiliating loss when voting for chief, he runs off to make his group because of his intense need for power. Now Ralph and Jack are going head to head, terrorizing everyone to pick sides, tearing everyone apart. Jack and Ralph tear the group apart by Jack no longer wanting to "play" by the rules and making unbearable tension between the two causing everyone to break up their new and once civil society.

After the two groups break up, Jack starts to usher more and more violence onto the island. Jack had just killed his first pig and slowly became more and more violent as time went on by starting the chant: "Kill the pig, Cut her throat, Spill her blood!" (Golding 69). Killing the pig and singing the cult-like songs was where the violence crept into the boys' lives. They had been brutally exposed to violence by killing an innocent animal at such an early age. The sow murdur began to open Jack's eyes, and he saw what the power, killing, and violence could do, and he quickly began to get out of hand, bringing more and more violence into the young boys' lives who had "chosen" to be in his new group, the hunters. After yet another fight,  Ralph tries to put Jack to an end by trying to convince the others that what they were doing was wrong: "What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?" (Golding 91). Ralph breaks up the conflict and tries to put the boy in his place by calling them harsh names such as "savages and "animals." As expected, Jack convinces the boys that being "savage" isn't such a bad thing. Jack says these things and soon convinces the boys that what they are doing is completely normal and common. He begins to shatter down the boys' ability to make decisions and slowly tears apart their built form from society. The violent and vicious killing of the pig was the big event in the boys' lives that started the destruction of the island and culture. 

In conclusion, Ralph and Jack broke up the society through their power-hunger and violent tendencies that they had shown on the Island. In the end, it does not matter how people act or how innocent they are; violence and a person's need for power will come to the surface no matter what  the circumstances are. If people are left to their own devices, people would tear each other apart no matter their age. Power-hunger and violence on the island play a big part in the main reasons for breaking up society.

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