Lord of the Flies by William Golding - Essay Example

Index Discuss the Beast. What is it Do you believe, as Simon said, that the beast is within human beings Could there be any possibility of a physical manifestation, and if so, what/who would that manifestation of evil be Simon a saintly, Christ like character Other symptoms of the emerging evil 2) Discuss the Beast. What is it Do you believe, as Simon said, that the beast is within Human beings Could there be any possibility of a physical manifestation, and if so, What/who would that manifestation of evil be Lord of the flies is a fictional description of the anarchic behaviors of a group of school- boys cast away on island. The story brings out the evil, the savagery, and bestiality of man lurking below the civilization. Yet at the same time he asserted his faith and belief in the grace of god. Lord of the flies, published in 1954, was deliberately written by golding to upset the customary view that boys are innocent and those they would behave innocently and admirably even when released from parental control and school discipline. In R. M. Ballantyne's Victorian story, coral island, the schoolboys behave in a most praise worthy manner when they find themselves on a uninhabetant island. In that story, the schoolboys rise virtuously to the occasion. But golding in lord of the flies rejects such a view of the behavior of the schoolboys. Golding's school boys, victims of a war time air disaster, revert to savagery. Attempts to sustain the discipline and organization of civilized beings give way gradually, under a perverse leader by the name jack marridew, to hunting, killing, and barbarous rituals. The story of the lord of the Flies also demonstrate "the end of innocence" and "the darkness of mans heart". Gloding develops this theme in loose analogy with the biblical story of original sin in the garden of Eden. A group of boys find themselves marooned on a largely paradisal desert island and they are depicted as rapidly falling away from civilization into barbarism and becoming followers of lord of flies.(lord of the flies is the name for devil).an officer from navel cruiser, who rescues the boys at the end, remarks in a tone disappointment: "I should have thought that a pack of British boys would have been able to put up a better show than that," adding that the boys situation remind him of the coral Island. Although goldings novel is partly based on R. M. Ballaynes coral island, goldings approach to juvenile psychology and to human nature is widely different from that of ballantyne. Lord of the flies belongs to an age of disillusionment and therefore strikes an altogether different note from the Victorian optimism of ballatynes story in which the enterprising boys recreate a picture of British society far away from home, in the wilderness. Lord of the flies denies even the hope that human innocence exits in children golding said that salvation is universal and that he was committed in a world, which had increasingly materialistic, to the view that god is within us. one of the evils of this century, according to golding, is the mummification of figures like Marx, Freud and Darwin; and indeed the tendency constantly to create totemistic images by which most people seem to live out their lives one morning Sam and Eric, who had put on duty one night to keep the fire burning, come in a state of deep perturbation from the mountain top and tell Ralph and the others that they have seen a beast on the mountain top and that beast had tried to chase them in order to seize them. Actually there is no beast on the mountain top. What the twins had seen and what these three boys have now seen is dead body of an air pilot entangled in the strings of his parachute. This air pilot had tried to land by parachute from an aircraft which had perhaps been attacked by the enemy, and had got killed in the process of landing on the mountain top. In the course of one such expedition, jack offer the head of a slain pig as a gift to beast with the hope that the beast would not harm him and his hunters. Simon at this time is at his usual hunt in the forest and witnesses the action of jack and his hunters in offering a gift to the beast. When the hunters have gone away, Simon imagines that the pig's head, which had been stuck by jack on a stick, has assumed the shape of the lord of the flies and is speaking to him (Simon). The lord of the flies tells Simon that Evil is a part of all the boys and cannot be removed from them. (the lord of the flies is a Personification of evil, his other name is being Beelzebub. he talk of the lord of the flies to Simon is, of course, a hallucination which Simon experiences). With reference to lord of flies, golding is reported to have made the following observation: lord of flies is not a Satire on human society. It's only too sad; a picture of what human society is like. I remember having tried to find the reason why I wrote explanation ill suddenly it dawned on me while somebody was interviewing me that the book had come out of my own reaction to the second world war which I fought in when I was relatively young man. It was not fighting in the war that made me write it, but finding out what people had done to each other after the war. I realized that my original idealist view of what people were like had now come down to a desperate reading of what they could actually be like. So I would say that the real force behind lord of the flies is grief just that. the title refers to Beelzebub, most stinking and depraved of all the devils: it is he and not the god of the Christians, who is worshipped. A child is a stark caricature of a man; he does not, despite words worth and Rousseau and other romantics who believe in the noble savage, trail clouds of innocent glory: he turns quickly to evil. this is the main thesis of goldings Novel. Simon a saintly, Christ like character Simon has lost his life in the course of his endeavor to serve the community to which he belonged. He is a Christ like figure. Golding has himself said that he intended Simon to be a saintly boy. Christ too had died while serving others. Simon has made a valuable discovery but the very boys, whom he wanted to serve by acquainting them with his discovery, become his murderers. Simon's nobility and saintliness distinguish him from all the other boys in the novel. He is tragic figure who wins both our admiration and sympathy. He is the one character who trains his goodness and who is not in the least affected by what goes on around him. He witnesses jacks ritual in cutting off the pigs head and offering it to the beast as a gift, but he is not in the least infected by the evil in jack and jacks supporters. While the novel with loss of innocence on this island, the innocence of at least one boy, namely Simon, remains intact. The description of how Simons dead body is carried away by the waves into the open sea is one of the most pathetic and poignant passages in the book. Other symptoms of the emerging evil I the connection with the treatment of the evil in this novel, another developments also now deserves our attention. One of the little boys has expressed his fear of beastie or the snake thing; and, indeed, the twisted branches of the trees and the hanging boughs do look like intertwining snake. the talk about a beastie or the snake thing persists among the Littluns. another development is roger s throwing stones in the direction of the little boy, just to tease him. Then there is another little boy who says that he too has seen a beast and that the beast had come from the water. This talk about the beast is significant even though at this point it is only the littluns who claim to have seen the beast. The beast allegorically represents evil, and In course of time the beast will acquire a concrete shape will then manifest itself through the action of jack and roger. Goldings message is reinforced through his delineation of the character if Simon. The views of Simons is now confirmed by having been objectifies and externalized. The lord of the flies is merely visible personification of evil within human beings. This experience clearly brings out the allegorical significance of novel and explains its title. In the symbolic terms jack represents the principle of evil, while Ralph represents the principle of good. The main theme of the novel is the conflict between good and evil, and the partial triumph of evil, even tough golding has himself said that the novel does not depict the triumph of the evil over the good but the rescue of good from the clutches of evil. released from the restraints of school discipline and the obligation of civilized life, jack develops into savage and barbarian. The evil instinct in him finds ample scope on the island to grow and flourish. Ralph on the contrary clings to the values of civilization and to the kind of discipline which he had imbibed at school. evidently, goodness preponderates in Ralph's mental make-up, while evil preponderates in jack's nature. Ralph too does deteriorate to some extent under the conditions of life on the island but the goodness in him remains largely intact. Jack goes on morally deteriorating till the goodness in him almost extinct. Bibliography Lord of the flies by William golding edited by ramji lall Lord of the flies by William golding edited by rama brothers Read More