Lord of the Flies: a View to the Evilness of Mankind

There is hardly ever a man clever enough to recognize the full extent of the evil he does. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, one could argue that man, in the state of nature, is born evil. The boys in the novel, represent a metaphorical idea in which they are born unto the island, and manifest mankind’s true nature. As the story progresses, the boys construct a society and ruin it. They revert to the primitive association in which fear and tyranny lead to ultimate rule. All of the boys that try to do the proper and befitting deeds are killed off. This violently throws them unto impending doom, thus proving that men are born evil.


No evil dooms man hopelessly except the evil he loves, and desires to continue in,


and make no effort to escape from. Jack in an excellent example of this indeed. It is quite


obvious that the boys do not need to hunt to survive, however, Jack finds much pleasure


in slaughtering vulnerable animals. When he kills a pig, "he [begins] to dance and his


laughter [becomes] a bloodthirsty snarling." (58). Without the influences of civilization to


restrict him from becoming a savage, Jack undergoes a series of degenerations in which


he is transformed into a power-hungry killer.   Nothing in the nature around them is evil,


but one of the human ways of talking oneself into inhuman acts is to cite the supposed


cruelty of nature. Yet, nothing in nature ever harms Jack, so this does not justify his


actions of killing and destruction. Jack is evil-- he is born evil. An additional example is yet another death of a defenseless pig. This time it is Roger who marks the pigs life for destruction. He stabs at the pig and shoves the stick, “Right up her ass!” (123) This is a bloodletting most vulgar and foul indeed. The type of murder only the most heinous and lowly killer could commit--Roger. There is no doubt that Roger is the worst of the...