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All people are born evil. It is the environment and society that people grow up in that causes them to seem like they are virtuous and moral. However, in pressured situations, Golding claims that the natural evilness that is within people reveals itself. In his novel ‘Lord of the Flies’, William Golding paints the setting as an unknown island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He introduces many characters including Ralph, Piggy, Simon, Jack, Roger, etc. as they land on this mysterious island due to a plane crash that is intended to put the boys in a safe place during a world war in the 1950s. Although there are many resources, including fruits, trees, and water, there are no parents to supervise the boys who range from six to twelve years old. As the boys start adapting to the island, they start to fear an imaginary beast that may live on the island. This beast is a symbol that is used to represent the fear of the unknown that leads to the corruption of mankind’s humanity and morality, causing people to become the beast that they fear the most. Golding achieves this by creating division on the island, which pushes the boys further away from civilization and more toward becoming the beast that lives deep within them.
The division of the two tribes between Ralph and Jack causes the beast to come out from inside of them. It causes unity to dissolve, which makes the group more vulnerable to being consumed by the beast. When Jack needed fire to cook the pig they caught, he and two other tribe members attacked Ralph’s group to steal the fire, after which Ralph claimed: “We’d have given you fire if you’d asked for it” (Golding, 176). Before the separation, the boys all worked together to survive by creating smoke, hunting, and finding shelter. However, because the boys are now separated, they don’t share the resources they once had all together. The competition for resources causes the boys to be wilder as they are willing to attack each other, which brings out the inner beast inside them and degrades their humanity. Additionally, the boys lose their morals more easily when they are separated because there is no one to rebuke their actions. After Jack leaves Ralph’s tribe, Roger claims that Jack is “going to beat Wilfred” just because “he got angry” (Golding, 159). With no supervision from other groups or rules they have to follow, Jack and his tribe can do anything they want to do. This makes it easier for Jack’s group to dismiss ethics and turn into beasts because there is no one stopping them or telling them that their actions are inhumane.
Moreover, Golding emphasizes how the boys’ behavior brings the beast into existence as they start losing their morals and turn to savagery. The beast becomes more real when they don’t feel any remorse or guilt for their violent actions. As the boys, including Ralph, Piggy, Sam, and Eric, joined Jack’s tribe dance, “there were no words and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws” (Golding, 153). As the tribe is filled with fear and energy, they violently kill Simon like animals by using their teeth and ‘claws’. At this moment, all the boys lose their ethics again and turn into more atrocious beasts as they don’t realize that they are essentially guilty of committing murder. Furthermore, the beast living inside everyone grows stronger as they purposely take a life inhumanely out of excitement. After brutally cutting the sow’s head and stabbing a stick right into her body, “Robert and Maurice acted the two parts and Maurice’s acting of the pig’s effort to avoid the advancing spear was so funny that the boys cried with laughter” (Golding, 136). The boys have no shame in inhumanely killing another living organism. Instead, they find it funny to reenact the killing scene of the pig suffering from their actions. This causes the beast within them to reveal itself as their savage actions worsen and their morals are destroyed.
As the boys are stranded on an island with no adult supervision, they bring out the beast within them by becoming divided, which causes them to lose their sense of civilization and society faster. The boys’ behavior also causes the beast inside them to grow bigger as their actions become progressively immoral. Golding’s symbol of the beast emphasizes the idea that society is fragile and people return to their natural instinct of evilness and brutality when order is lost. To prevent the unfortunate outcomes of ‘Lord of the Flies’, Golding explains that people need laws to keep them in order. Otherwise, if people could do anything they wanted and could disregard rules, today’s world may mimic the events that happened in ‘Lord of the Flies’ and cause the beast within everyone to be unleashed.
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