October 25, 2017
Period 6
The Cruelty Within Us
Civilization has shaped the way people act, but when those ties to civilization are broken people have the potential to spiral downwards into violence and cruelty. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a group of young boys who have been stranded on an island succumb to their most primal instincts and evolve into bloodthirsty savages as their fear of a beast grows stronger. The beast is only the evil within them and becomes more powerful every time they give in to their desires. Some embrace the new ways of life on the island while others cling desperately to the hope of rescue and civilization. The hunter Jack’s transformation from the rule-following choir boy to murderous savage highlights the urges acted upon by humans in bad situations, proving Golding’s theory that people have a great capacity for evil within them.
Jack begins to change into a savage after he creates a hunting mask for himself in order to kill a pig. He and the boys are preparing to go on a hunt and Jack makes himself a mask by painting his face. When Jack put his mask on, “He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. He capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness,” (Golding 64). Before this moment, Jack seemed like a normal boy who liked the rules, but this mask drastically changes him. Jack ceases to exist and the savage within him is born. The mask allows him to leave behind what he was and embrace his new persona. The reason for making the mask in the first place was to hunt, and the need to hunt came from being on the island. Without the unfortunate circumstance of being stranded, Jack would never have even had the chance to become a hunter or a killer. Not only in the book do we see how masks can change a person, it happens in the real world as well. Sunglasses are a type of mask that increase a person’s anonymity. The author of Sunglasses Make You Less Generous said that “Sunglasses don’t confer as great a sense of anonymity as masks, but there’s a larger body of evidence showing masks’ detrimental impact on moral behavior,” (Robb 17). An experiment in the article described how sunglass wearers would give out less money to strangers, and that in the Stanford Prison Experiment guards were given sunglasses to reduce their humanity with the prisoners. Another study found that when children wore masks on Halloween, they took more candy than they were supposed to. By removing the wearer’s sense of identity, masks let them become something else and even promote the degradation of civilized behavior, exactly as seen in Lord of the Flies.
Jack completely loses himself and becomes a total savage when he feels the need to break away from Ralph’s leadership. After being a hunter for Ralph, Jack grows tired of his civilized ways and forms his own tribe. The new group is all savages as seen by the way they are described. “The chief was sitting there, naked to the waist, his face blocked out in white and red. The tribe lay in a semicircle before him,” (Golding 160). Everyone has lost their old identity and become a savage. Jack is no more and is just the chief; even his face is covered. The choir boys are no longer choir boys, they are now just the tribe. Civilization does not belong on a desert island, and the boys lose their ties to it. The island is made to hunt on and promotes the existence of the savages. The deaths of Piggy and Simon and the hunt for Ralph are signs that being civilized in a savage world will get you killed. Once again, this behavior is also seen in real life. William Golding wrote an article called Why Boys Become Vicious which gave examples of situations in which boys would turn to violence. He described the gangs of orphaned Russian children following World War I. “Dispossessed, without anywhere to live or anything to live on, [the children] roamed the country attacking and killing out of sheer cruelty,” (Golding 7). The children have no civilization left to hold onto, and without it, it becomes apparent what humans really are. They were also scared and used violence as a form of security for themselves and eventually it would become who they are. Golding said that these children bonded over their viciousness, much like the hunters in the novel. When given the right opportunity, cruelty and violence will completely take over a person.
Given enough time away from a civilized environment, almost everyone eventually breaks down into a savage who gives into their every urge and desire which demonstrates the truth of Golding’s theory that humans are born evil. In Lord of the Flies, it is seen through Jack feeling the need to hunt or become his own leader due to being on the island. Although not every child became a savage, they would most likely have changed with time based on the transformations of the others. The actions of these boys is Golding showing us how important it is to hold on to your civilized side in order to maintain a proper society.