Essay: Mankind’s potential for evil and innate savagery: Lord of the Flies

Despite our society’s efforts to stifle man’s darker side, moral corruption proves to be both inescapable and ineluctable; contrary to commonly adopted views of humanistic tendencies towards goodness, each individual in our society is susceptible to his or her base, innate instincts. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding transforms seemingly harmless British schoolboys into bloodthirsty savages as the underlying evil within them surfaces. The exploration of mankind’s potential for evil and innate savagery is highlighted by the boys’ barbaric nature in a supposedly utopic island. William Golding’s immersion in World War II generated a profound impact on the criticisms and imperfections of human nature that he uncovers throughout Lord of The Flies.
Throughout the novel, Golding clearly exposes the egotistical and arrogant attitude, culture, and barbaric behavior affiliated with British individuals. Towards the opening of the novel, the adolescent boys on the island affirm that “After all, we’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything. So we’ve got to do the right things” (42). Golding immediately institutes the conceited mindset that the boys possess, and he exploits supposedly one of the most polished cultures to reveal that even they fall susceptible to their base human instincts. Further blinded by the illusion that their presumably superior English heritage prevents savagery, the boys continue to disregard the uncooperative qualities of their actions throughout the novel. When Simon suggests that the beast “maybe it’s only us” (89), his proposition is immediately faced with opposition and the boys contemptuously dismissed him as “batty,” claiming that his suggestion regarding the beast was entirely invalid. The boys refuse to acknowledge Simon because they are neither capable nor willing to consider the terrifying truth that evil emerges from within themselves. Furthermore, towards the end of the novel, the naval officer states ‘I should have thought a pack of British boys…would have been able to put up a better show than that’(201). Upon standing in front of boys, the officer blatantly argues that these boys from educated upper-class families should hold a sense of firm grounding in the value of human life. Golding shapes a clear image of the drastic change among the boys and alludes to a tendency to descend into savagery.
William Golding’s enlistment in the Royal Navy and participation in the war directly influenced the content and subject matter, and the entirety of the novel is an allegory to World War II.  Throughout the book, Golding denounces the mass desolation generated by the young boys and brutal nature of human beings. The boys, depicted as the most pure and upper class members of society, experience a drastic change; the seemingly harmless schoolboys evolve into bloodthirsty savages as their dormant human instincts within them emerges. Golding begins with a crash on the island, a microcosm to the rest of the world,  “all round him the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat”(7). Almost instantly, the boys’ first encounter is full of destruction and disturbance of peace. Additionally, the boys have no reason to be savage, with all necessities for survival, their competition for leadership is unnecessary and counterproductive. The land is “scattered with decaying coconuts and palm saplings,”(10) vegetation and nutrition is abundant. The boys are not becoming savage to survive, but it is their unavoidable natural human instinct.
Golding’s life was consistently surrounded by the destruction and slaughter created by humans around him. Consequently, he wrote Lord of the Flies as an illustration of the events that he encountered. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, Golding utilizes the temperaments and nature of the characters in order to reveal the true nature of humanity. The young boys on the island and the destruction they cause serve to relay a message about the natural behavior of humans. The isolation of the boy’s from civility and adults allowed their innate savagery to emerge. Moreover, Golding criticizes the conceited and egotistical mentality of the British, and how they quickly abandon their morals and ethics when isolated from law and order.