Lord of the Flies 1
Lord of the Flies“Fun and Games”, was what the British officer said while he was rescuing the boys from the island, “Fun and Games.” Ironically, fun and games to the boys on the island were immoral. Necessities for the boys, such as hunting, became an evil, immoral way of life. People say that every person in the world has some kind of evil in them. Many people do not recognize evil in themselves because an evil life is typical to them. Most importantly, many people do not understand how their evil can ruin the society they live in. In the book, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, human evil, as it overtakes the characters, is responsible for the downfall of society on the island.
During the first few days on the island, the group of boys, who survive a plane crash establish a society to protect themselves against problems. They use a conch that was found by Piggy, in the sand to symbolize leadership. The boys voted for a leader, Ralph, and they organize meetings at which the conch gives his holder the right to speak. Jack, head of the choir, which later becomes the hunters, takes the boys on a rebellious path. Ralph comes up with the idea of making a fire because to him the most important objective is to get rescued. Ralph says where the fire will be located and the rules that they will have about it. Jack shows his excitement by yelling, “We’ll have rules! Lots of rules.”(31) Piggy, another boy on the island, is fat, has glasses, and is very smart. However he is very different from most of the other boys. Whenever he gets up to speak during a meeting the kids typically yell, “Sit down, fatty!” Piggy’s intelligence makes him behave more mature than the other boys. He always tries to come up with ideas and rules that will help their society. Jack begins to change, he would rather go have fun and not worry about rules, instead of worry about the island society.
Jack seems more interested in hunting pigs than in governing the island. He begins to show his human evil by hunting for pleasure and making fun of Piggy. Piggy becomes the product of torment, for being different. However, it is Jack who picks fun at him the most. At one point Piggy is whining about the fire that Jack punches him in the face breaking Piggy’s glasses and by making it tough to see. His evil has grown to a stage where he cannot control his temper. Jack’s behavior shows him becoming more primitive. The boys discover that hunting can help them in their fight for survival. At first Jack thinks he is so tough by trying to kill a pig, but he does not have the guts to do so. He starts practicing, and becomes quite good. When his id takes over he even begins to put face paint on and tries to explain, “For hunting, like in war. You know-dazzle paint.”(63) While he is taking the boys out hunting he lets the fire go out, which was his responsibility, and the boys may not be rescued. Jack leads the boys into irresponsible, primitive behavior. The hunters become too much for Ralph to govern; he doesn’t have the leadership skills. All the hunters want to do is hunt and nothing else. Jack doesn’t even care about the society the boys organized; instead, all he says is, “Bullocks to the rules.” Now the human evil is taking over, in him and all the hunters as well. When the boys kill a sow Robert yells, “Right up her ass.” He is talking about the spear. The boys’ immoral and evil way of life make them laugh at this. Jack then runs off to start his own society where there are no rules and hunting is a way of life.
Throughout their lives on the island, the littl’uns claim to see a beast which to them is evil. However, Simon, a quite independent boy, realizes what is happening. The beast is a figment of the boys’ imagination. He realizes that the beast and evil are inside of everyone, and that is why things are out of control. However, the boys don’t see it that way, and evil quickly becomes personified as Jack takes over. During a violent thunderstorm the boys kill Simon while chanting, “Kill the Beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood.” Toward the end Piggy is killed when Jack’s hunter’s drop a boulder on him, because he is trying to get his stolen glasses back. Simon was kill because they thought he was the beast. These two incidents show of the immorality and evil of the boys has made them not to understand who or why they are killing. Piggy was killed just because they were mad at him. Their evil and id has taken over themselves and collapsed their society. When Piggy dies, Jack yells, “See? See? That’s what you’ll get! I meant that! There isn’t a tribe for you anymore. The conch is gone-.” This shows that the boys are hardly even human. As Ralph begins to run away, the boys begin to chase him in the hunt, they have always wanted to do.
The irony of Lord of the Flies, is not the fact that anarchy and chaos happened on the island. The fact that, the British officer picking them up was going to take them back to their homeland, where the adults were at war shows this irony. Not only has human evil taken over the boys, it exists among the civilized adults as well. Even though the boys tried their best to form a society with no problems, the evil part in everyone could not be governed. Human evil caused the breakdown of society. Even though the boys thought this was normal and the right thing to do, none of them realized that it was the evil inside of them that made everything fall apart. Today the “perfect” world that we live in isn’t so perfect.