The Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a creative book about a group of boys that have become stranded on an island, forced to rely on their own wits and morals to survive, but without the constraints or rules imposed by civilization, they eventually fail to govern themselves properly and it results in the brutal deaths of some of the boys before they are finally rescued. In the story, the main characters, Ralph and Jack, symbolize a battle between civilization and savagery, and showing their decline into losing the morals that civilization had brought them. Another important character is Simon, who discovers that the beast, as the children call the mysterious being that they all fear, is actually not real and is a part of each and every one of them, but is killed in a frenzy before he can reveal this. The story helps show many important themes, including the differences between idealism and realism, the battle between civilization and barbarism, and the inner evil in all of us that we must work to suppress.
Idealism is the ideal world, where everyone does the important thing for the long term, but realism is what happens in reality, where people slack off and choose to do the more exciting thing that will provide instant benefits. Ideally, more people would choose to try to see the future and prepare for potential benefits that could be immense, but the problem is, many people would rather just have fun immediately instead of worrying about what’s to come. In The Lord of the Flies, Ralph’s group symbolized idealism, where they made sure to maintain a signal fire that would alert passing ships of their presence, while Jack’s group hunted and gathered food, to help strengthen themselves. As the story leads on, eventually, the signal fire is shunned and this shows their descent into madness and loss of virtues and civilization. We have to be able to recognize the importance of looking ahead and preparing for the future, instead of being complacent and trying to simply make the present slightly more entertaining. Idealism may not be in the real world yet, but it’s important that we help encourage it and make people more likely to accept it.
Our civilization is a way to ward off our more barbaric instincts, to help us prevent unnecessary actions that harm others and ourselves. Civilization is how we learn morals and prevent ourselves from descending into anger and hate. Barbarism is where the group mentality allows people to believe that they aren’t doing anything wrong as long as everyone else is like them. In The Lord of the Flies, Ralph’s group attempted to stay civilized and prevent themselves from losing their morals, but they lost this battle. People like Simon had natural morals, and were naturally inclined to help others without even any civilization to encourage this, but he was killed while the other children were caught up with bloodlust and a sense that as long as everyone else was participating, they might as well, causing the loss of life. Regulations and rules are required to continue civilization and prevent savagery, because it’s difficult to control yourself with no help at all for extended periods of time. Civilization is something we must make sure to protect while warding off and oppressing barbarism, in order to help maintain order in our current society.
All people have an innate urge that we must suppress, because despite all of the positive aspects of human nature, there are still negative parts of it. Our inner evil can manifest in many ways, such as as doubt or anger, and it can also cause us to make horrible decisions that end up harming others unintentionally. In The Lord of the Flies, the children started imagining a “beast”, a horrible creature that would hurt many of them. They started deluding themselves with “sightings” of the beast that could be explained if they just spent longer processing it. They thought the parachutist’s body was the beast, and they ran away before they could actually understand what it was. Simon was the only one who managed to see and perceive that the beast was actually inside all of them. The mob mentality that Jack’s group supported allowed them to spread blame around when they accidently murdered one of their own, however, it shows that all of us have it inside of us. Evil actions are horrible and we should always try to prevent it by encouraging kindness in all of us and helping others deal with our stress and problems. It’s extremely important that we all remember that we could do horrible things, but that we make the conscious choice not to.
The Lord of the Flies is a gripping book that serves to educate us upon many topics, including the immense differences between idealism and realism, the ongoing battle between civilization and barbarism, and the inner evil in all of us that we must choose not to allow. Idealism is how things should be, but realism is how the way things are currently and what we seek to change into a more ideal and prepared world. Civilization can always be torn down by barbaric behavior, but we have to make sure we continue to protect our civilization and shun barbarism and actions that help encourage it in order to continue our peaceful world to help allow ourselves to grow and mature. Part of human nature is an urge to flow with the mob, to destroy, and to hurt, but we have to oppress this inner evilness and instead encourage actions that show helpfulness, kindness and encouragement. The Lord of the Flies teaches many incredibly interesting lessons that help make the story even better through its many characters and interesting plot development. The Lord of the Flies is an extremely good book in that it educates us on many themes while also being entertaining.
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