The Evil Within
The Evil WithinThe Evil Within
In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, Golding illustrates how much the human mind can endure insanity and loneliness before becoming an immoral being. Golding also shows that there is some hope through Simon and his ability to resist intimidation when faced by evils of unimaginable proportions.
An example of how much the mind can take the torture and torment of the ‘darkness of man’s heart’ is Ralph. Golding characterizes Ralph as a boy who has trouble reality and dreams. As Ralph drifts off into dreams, he could remember how nice life was before the plane crash. When he comes back to reality, he realizes how much he has changed in the way he handles things and his overall rationale. Eventually, Ralph would prove that he could not handle all the stresses, thus letting the animalism seep through him when he injures the pig. After this, he is swept up into the moment of death and blood and they all begin a play where Ralph gets too carried away and actually jabs Robert so hard that it hurts Robert.
Roger is the main character that Golding uses to show this savage evil. Roger never really does seem to be a nice person since he throws rocks at the younger children even when he senses a “ring around the children that seems to have the authority of grown-ups” and yet he still does not care. By the end of the story, Roger becomes so accustomed to being cruel and has become the authority figure where he becomes heartless and immoral. Even after he kills Piggy he only becomes more engulfed by the evil within; the destruction of the conch shows his resistance to authority.
Golding even has Piggy change from being a well-mannered, smart boy to a little stronger and willful kid. This occurs because of Jack’s total disregard of anyone’s feelings. Thus causing Piggy to build up anger inside of him and Piggy finally lets it all out before he dies. Piggy never really had a chance to lash out, but he was on the verge. Piggy also seemed to represent order in the tribe and because of Rogers problem with authority, Roger destroys Piggy and the Conch.
“The whole message of the story is about the ‘darkness of man’s heart’, which exists in everyone. To emphasize this side of human nature, the author had to make a situation where it was possible to display these characteristics. It would have been impossible for Golding to get his point across without these constraints, and even if it is thought that the story was written to make a point, and Golding has achieved that”(Unknown 4). This paragraph describes that the whole story is about how the ‘darkness of man’s heart’ is brought out. Similarly, if the conflict between Jack and Ralph does not...
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