Gagnon 1
Agnes Gagnon
Mrs.Aucoin
Eng01 block3
Humanity.
In the story Lord of the Flies by William Golding after the threat of a bomb in England boy ranging any where from 6 to 13 find themselves on a plane they have no clue where there headed as a storm hits the boys plane crashes the first thing they do is assign a chief, Ralph, but as the story progresses we can see the boys turning to a more savage and blood thirst leader, Jack, then the sensible leader they first choose. When the to leaders end up splitting up the tribe we can see that most of the boys have gone to there savage and darker side completely losing grasp on humanity and people end up dieing because of it. Golding has a very dark view on humanity and has no problems putting his views though his books. Golding develops his view though characters, symbols, and plots.
One way Golding develops his thoughts is through the killing of the first pig and how the boys show there thrill of the hunt/kill. After this first kill we can see that the boys are starting to care less and less about the fire and that they are more animalistic because of there savage like chanting
"Kill the pig, cut her throat, bash her in!" (75).
We see this behavior again when the boys laugh at jacks reeking palms when he is cover in the pigs blood on page 135. Then when Jack's tribe kills piggy it shows that as a leader Jack is as savage as a pack of wolves. This shows that Golding has a dark view of humanity through the darkness of a humans mind.
Another way he shows his view of humanity is thought the death of Piggy and the braking of the conch. These to things represent a society with rules and structure by killing piggy and the breaking the conch. By finishing these to things of Golding completed the plot of all the boys losing there grip of humanity. The boys don't realize this fact till the very end of the book there not only crying about the loss of a friend but there also crying about there loss of innocence as Golding said here,
"…Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart…" (202)
this also gives the hint that he believes that all men are evil by being blunt and just coming out and saying it though one of his characters, Ralph. So by killing the structured characters he proves his point that all men have very dark and savage souls when taken out of society.
Then we have the pigs head known as lord of the flies. Lord of the flies is a character but he is also a key in to the very darkness that Golding is trying to create. Lord of the flies is basic a pigs head that Simon sees in his hiding spot left by jacks hunting group for the "beast" thou its just Simon conscience the lord of the flies says very dark things like
"I'm warning you. I'm going to get angry. D'you see? You're not wanted ...' (140)
and another reason you can tell that the lord of the flies is truly evil is because when Simon looks into the mouth of the lord of the flies he sees nothing but blackness. This is a sign because more of the time black means evil and never ending blackness can be taken as a never ending evil or a great evil. So the lord of the flies shows the darkness of mans heart by the lies and hurtful words he says to Simon.
Another way Golding shows his view on humanity is the stealing of Piggy's glasses. When jack stole Piggy's glasses he was committing a crime that would be frowned upon is society but being taken out of society and being completely disconnected with his conscious Jack steals Piggy's glasses by the cover of night. This also shows a very dark side of Ralph by making him upset and mad as show in this quote "…the blood was flowing in his cheeks and the bunged up eye throbbed…" (176). He got this mad because jack showed not an ounce of guilty or recentness for his bad deed of stealing Piggy's glasses. The only way Jack was able to do this with out any shame was the fact that he had his "warriors paint" on making a disguising him so that he has no shame to anything he did not even when he murder a mother pig which at the time was nursing her babies. This show that Golding has a dark view of humanity though the way that Jack shows no since of guild even when killing a mother pig or sow or committing the crime of stealing.
In conclusion though the stealing of piggy's glasses, the first kill of a innocent pig, the death of piggy, and the character of lord of the flies Golding shows his very dark view of humanity. All of these events and points can be found in Golding's book Lord of the flies.