Hello
Lack of internet and then a weekend away surfing have meant this is somewhat delayed. Sorry.
Lack of internet and then a weekend away surfing have meant this is somewhat delayed. Sorry.
Civil v savage
Golding's emphasis on the negative consequences of
savagery can be read as an clear endorsement of civilization. In the early
chapters of the novel, he suggests that one of the important functions of
civilized society is to provide an outlet for the savage impulses that reside
inside each individual. Jack's initial desire to kill pigs to demonstrate his
bravery, for example, is channeled into the hunt, which
provides needed food for the entire group. As long as he lives within the rules
of civilization, Jack is not a threat to the other boys; his impulses are being
re-directed into a productive task. Rather, it is when Jack refuses to recognize
the validity of society and rejects Ralph's authority that the dangerous
aspects of his character truly emerge. Golding suggests that while savagery is
perhaps an inescapable fact of human existence, civilization can mitigate its
full expression.
The central concern
of Lord
of the Flies is
the conflict between two competing impulses that exist within all human beings:
the instinct to live by rules, act peacefully, follow moral commands, and value
the good of the group against the instinct to gratify one’s immediate desires,
act violently to obtain supremacy over others, and enforce one’s will. This
conflict might be expressed in a number of ways: civilization vs. savagery,
order vs. chaos, reason vs. impulse, law vs. anarchy, or the broader heading of
good vs. evil. Throughout the novel, Golding associates the instinct of
civilization with good and the instinct of savagery with evil.
The conflict between
the two instincts is the driving force of the novel, explored through the
dissolution of the young English boys’ civilized, moral, disciplined behavior
as they accustom themselves to a wild, brutal, barbaric life in the
jungle. Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel, which means
that Golding conveys many of his main ideas and themes through symbolic
characters and objects. He represents the conflict between civilization and
savagery in the conflict between the novel’s two main characters: Ralph, the
protagonist, who represents order and leadership; and Jack, the antagonist, who
represents savagery and the desire for power.
Throughout
the novel, the conflict is dramatized by the clash between Ralph and Jack, who respectively
represent civilization and savagery. The differing ideologies are expressed by
each boy's distinct attitudes towards authority. While Ralph uses his authority
to establish rules, protect the good of the group, and enforce the moral and
ethical codes of the English society the boys were raised in, Jack is
interested in gaining power over the other boys to gratify his most primal
impulses. When Jack assumes leadership of his own tribe, he demands the
complete subservience of the other boys, who not only serve him but worship him
as an idol. Jack's hunger for power suggests that savagery does not resemble
anarchy so much as a totalitarian system of exploitation and illicit power.
Loss of innocence.
As the boys on the island progress from well-behaved,
orderly children longing for rescue to cruel, bloodthirsty hunters who have no
desire to return to civilization, they naturally lose the sense of innocence
that they possessed at the beginning of the novel. The painted savages in
Chapter 12 who have hunted, tortured, and killed animals and
human beings are a far cry from the guileless children swimming in the lagoon
in Chapter 3. But Golding does not portray this loss of innocence as
something that is done to the children; rather, it results naturally from their
increasing openness to the innate evil and savagery that has always existed
within them. Golding implies that civilization can mitigate but never wipe out
the innate evil that exists within all human beings. The forest glade in which
Simon sits in Chapter 3 symbolizes this
loss of innocence. At first, it is a place of natural beauty and peace, but
when Simon returns later in the novel, he discovers the bloody sow’s head
impaled upon a stake in the middle of the clearing. The bloody offering to the
beast has disrupted the paradise that existed before—a powerful symbol of
innate human evil disrupting childhood innocence.
At the end of Lord of the Flies, Ralph weeps "for
the end of innocence," a lament that retroactively makes explicit one of
the novel's major concerns, namely, the loss of innocence. When the boys are
first deserted on the island, they behave like children, alternating between
enjoying their freedom and expressing profound homesickness and fear. By the
end of the novel, however, they mirror the warlike behaviour of the adults of
the Home Counties: they attack, torture, and even murder one another without
hesitation or regret. The loss of the boys' innocence on the island runs
parallel to, and informs their descent into savagery, and it recalls the
Bible's narrative of the Fall of Man from paradise.
Accordingly, the island is coded in the early chapters
as a kind of paradise, with idyllic scenery, fresh fruit, and glorious weather.
Yet, as in the Biblical Eden, the temptation toward corruption is present: the
younger boys fear a "snake-thing." The "snake-thing" is the
earliest incarnation of the "beast" that, eventually, will provoke
paranoia and division among the group. It also explicitly recalls the snake
from the Garden of Eden, the embodiment of Satan who causes Adam and Eve's fall
from grace. The boys' increasing belief in the beast indicates their gradual
loss of innocence, a descent that culminates in tragedy. We may also note that
the landscape of the island itself shifts from an Edenic space to a hellish
one, as marked by Ralph's observation of the ocean tide as an impenetrable
wall, and by the storm that follows Simon's murder.
The forest glade that Simon retreats to in Chapter Three
is another example of how the boys' loss of innocence is registered on the
natural landscape of the island. Simon first appreciates the clearing as
peaceful and beautiful, but when he returns, he finds The Lord of the Flies
impaled at its centre, a powerful symbol of how the innocence of childhood has
been corrupted by fear and savagery.
Even the most
sympathetic boys develop along a character arc that traces a fall from
innocence (or, as we might euphemize, a journey into maturity). When Ralph is
first introduced, he is acting like a child, splashing in the water, mocking
Piggy, and laughing. He tells Piggy that he is certain that his father, a naval
commander, will rescue him, a conviction that the reader understands as the
wishful thinking of a little boy. Ralph repeats his belief in their rescue
throughout the novel, shifting his hope that his own father will discover them
to the far more realistic premise that a passing ship will be attracted by the
signal fire on the island. By the end of the novel, he has lost hope in the
boys' rescue altogether. The progression of Ralph's character from idealism to
pessimistic realism expresses the extent to which life on the island has
eradicated his childhood.
I think that this idea of the beast being within all of us and the beast being linked to Satan shows how there is evil within all of us: there is a fragility to society and our civilisation could diminish rapidly. In these circumstances, we do not know what we might be capable of.
Some of this is taken from websites such as shmoop and sparknotes. I highly recommend them as revision sites. Don't forget we've also got revision guides for sale in the library.
Enjoy work-experience!
Ms
