Lord of the Flies: We Tend Towards Entropy

Transcription

1 Lord of the Flies: We Tend Towards Entropy Sarah

2 1 Sarah Mr. Sweet Humanities 25 January 2018 Lord of the Flies : We Tend Towards Entropy Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is a fictional novel that chronicles the survival of a group of young boys stranded on an island, without adult supervision, after a plane crash in the mid-20th century. As the boys acclimate to life on the island, they vote on a leader, Ralph. Ralph tries to create a civilized order on the island by calling assemblies with a conch shell, ordering jobs for the boys, and separating power between the big kids and younger kids. However, over time, bickering among the boys leads Jack, the main hunter, to leave Ralph s group and convince other kids to join him. Jack s tribal group quickly enjoys the thrill and power of hunting and decides that it shouldn t just apply to pigs but also humans. The British boys in Jack s tribe shift quickly into savagery and cause a state of anarchy to erupt on the island. This classic novel illustrates the importance of conforming to rules, laws, systems and structures to promote order and organization by showing how a group of boys descends quickly into anarchy and brutality on a deserted island. The author, William Golding, uses his own life experiences to inform the story of his novel, Lord of the Flies. He was born in Newquay, United Kingdom, in 1911 and he graduated from Oxford University before becoming a teacher at an all-boys school.

3 2 Then, as World War II began, he enlisted in the Royal Navy and fought in the war. Afterwards, he returned to England and began writing books and poems. These experiences helped him see and understand human nature from the structures and violence of military fighting to the more academic setting of an all-boys school. Golding identified the theme of this novel in the following way, The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature (Golding 204). Throughout the book the shift of one person, Jack, turning rogue affects the whole society because, out of fear of their own lives, they want to join too. Ralph represents humans need for known rules and an orderly society, while Jack represents humans distrust of others and concern for themselves, which leads to breakdowns in organized systems and structures. Although all countries have leaders and rules, there are some nations, such as Somalia in Africa, where anarchy, which is the absence of law and order without authority, exists. Without an established order, social groups clash, violence occurs, and people only think about surviving instead of stopping the chaos (BBC News- Somalia). For example, many ISIS base camps are located in Somalia and they persist with their violent plans as there is no police or army to control their behavior. T hey have no governing body to tell them what can be done, so theft, murder, rape, human trafficking and the likes, run rampant there since there is no set of laws to dictate what they can and cannot do. Somalia is a decaying and ruinous land, and the lack of government has caused that (Odyssey: Why Anarchism Fails). The sole purpose of anarchy is to let everyone do whatever they want without restrictions (16 types of Government). Yet this

4 3 is what people live by. Being completely let loose from any type of order simply doesn t work and instead causes more conflict between man (Identifying Causes of State Failure-Atlantic Community). They hauled Piggy s [Piggy is a human character, not an animal] clear of the wreckage and leaned him against a tree (Golding 167). In the book fear spreads from the erratic behavior of the boys towards each other, like in this quote violence spreads with no consequence for hurting someone else, which shows why anarchy is so dangerous. In the United States, consequences are set for inappropriate behavior, which supplies negative emotions for the people who commit a bad deed. On this island all negative emotions are taken away because the savage boys aren t given the notion that the action is wrong. We ll raid them and take the fire (Golding 136). Jack decides he needs fire but, since his group lacks the resources to build one, he chooses to raid Ralph s group. The kids in Jack s group are so dislodged from their own British civilized selves that any barbaric action is acceptable to them. It was dark. There was that - that bloody dance. There was lightning and thunder and rain. We was scared (Golding 156). This quote recalls the bloody dance of murder of one of the kids, Simon. Just as if Jack s tribe were hunting a pig, they took their spears and stabbed the boy many times as if a devil had taken over their decisions. This shows that anarchy, and not having order and rules, enables humans to do what they want without regard for others. Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! (Golding 186) This passage reveals how the raw, primitive emotions of hunting creates the conditions for anarchy because the group of boys act wildly on the desire to kill. This

5 4 dreadful eruption from an unknown world made her frantic; she squealed and bucked and the air was full of sweat and noise and blood and terror (Golding 135). The boys who join Jack s savage group learn how to kill and do it in the most painful way possible. The poor pig is stabbed, her throat is slashed, and her blood seeps out until she has none left. Killing is not a fear to the boys anymore, but a habit in their tribe and personality. William Golding s strong belief as to why we need order and rules explains why in their absence so many barbaric events occur, such as plain murder. Although in the United States murder still occurs, consequences for the crimes are enacted if you are found guilty. Even in a society with order there will always be outliers who will not follow the rules and conform. Human nature proves to us that from the beginning of time thoughts such as killing another person, or hurting someone s feelings, has felt needed for some people. Golding understands that cruel acts will still happen, even in the presence of order, but wants humans to realize that the only way to reduce the cruel acts is by instilling order - by having a society with systems and structures. Making someone fear going to jail, and yet wanting to be like the general population, deters most people from doing terrible things. Humans have always felt the urge to be their own bosses with no one dictating rules. Anarchy seems to promise individuals that they will have free will to do whatever they want. Kids all over the world are sick of hearing teachers, parents, and older people tell them what to do and adults are sick of having to follow laws and regulations provided by the government, which is why getting to have the autonomy to do whatever

6 5 you want sounds freeing, peaceful, and perfect. People would wake up making their own decisions that hurt themselves or benefit them. Although this arrangement sounds amazing, it simply doesn t work in reality. Golding seems to understand this desire and shows why in this book chaos occurs and the perfect reality disappears. Imagine you take a very young tiger away from its mother and it becomes your pet who grows up trusting you. At any moment the tiger could be triggered and go back to its natural habits of hunting. The relationship is very fragile just like the British boys in Lord of the Flies relationship to being civilized boys. Although England has developed through the centuries as a highly sophisticated democracy, when the boys landed on the island away from civilized society, their relationship to Britain disappeared and their human nature reappeared like the tigers. Thomas Hobbes, a 17th century British philosopher and author of The Leviathan, links the ideas of anarchy and state of nature. He lived during the violence of the English civil war from 1642 to 1651 and witnessed suffering of the people around him (Cox 22). University of London Professor Michael Cox wrote this of Thomas Hobbes: In a world without a government to enforce order - a condition that Hobbes calls the state of nature - every human must be vigilant against threats to their survival. A world without government, he claims, forces humanity into a constant state of war because there is no way to trust in the good of peaceful intentions of others. We must always be on our guard lest we be attacked (Cox 23). Thomas Hobbes understands just like William Golding human nature and the defects of anarchy.

7 6 This novel highlights the necessity of setting rules and establishing laws to create and sustain order among human beings. In the United States, children learn at young ages to conform to rules and laws, and these same rules and laws are reinforced throughout adult life to keep society stable. For example, children in school learn to walk and wait in a single file line, so it is clear to all about whose turn is next and not to cut in front of someone else. Another example of establishing rules is learned from the children s game: green light, red light. Toddlers learn in that game to stop at a red light and go forward at a green light. Learning to respect conformity and the norms of society is what both of these examples teach and, through them, children learn to conform to an orderly society, which is William Golding s theme. Anthem by Ayn Rand is a novel about the importance of individualism. Ayn Rand grew up during communist Russia and shows why in the book if you only care about the collective, you lose yourself entirely. A man named Equality finds in the book the word I, which is completely removed from his society and with that he discovers the importance of himself. Ayn Rand believes in the philosophy that you should worship yourself before anyone else and that you only do things to benefit yourself. Throughout the book she shows the extreme conformity that a totalitarian society promotes where the individual has no place to think, act, question, or enjoy for themselves. Anthem and Lord of the Flies are two books that show how if you gain power through fear and savagery, your power over others will increase. In Anthem someone who discovers the word I and the meaning of individuality is burned to death at an assembly as a warning to others about not breaking rules. In the Lord of the Flies, Jack

8 7 kills Simon, which causes many kids to join his tribe because they don t want to get killed themselves. In many ways, power in both books is derived from fear. Brutal slaughter becomes an excitement for the majority of nineteenth century British boys on the island. How do civilized kids change so drastically in their behavior that they develop a thirst for such horrible crimes? Lord of the Flies for me was a gruesome fictional story. It portrayed in vivid detail how people act when no reasonable expectations and rules are set upon them and was almost as if the book was going back in time to when mankind were cavemen. I think William Golding really understands how lost mankind can be without the systems and structures of society. He believes that kids who lack adult supervision or rules and laws will act savagely and disregard attempts at organized civilization. Something that is so absurd is that humans can change their dispositions so quickly like how the British boys did. Society will never be perfect. There will always be bad and good and rulers like Jack and rulers like Ralph, but if we hold onto our values like democracy, rational thinking, and compassion, then we can find a good balance of both good and bad. Golding wants his readers to understand that order and rules must be developed in a society in order to prevent the formation of anarchy. Lord of the Flies by William Golding warns society that without systems and structures, chaos and barbaric events result. Thomas Hobbes says in regards to the conditions of anarchy, The life of a man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Human nature lures people back to their survival instincts where they only look out for

9 8 themselves. In this way, perhaps Golding is correct that the flaws of society come back to the weaknesses of human nature. Instead, Golding s novel shows readers the importance of conforming to rules to preserve order and organization for all. Works Cited Anarchism: Why It Fails. The Odyssey Online, 28 Aug. 2017, Cox, Michael, and Dr. Richard Campanaro. Introduction to International Relations. University of London, Golding, William. Lord of the flies. Penguin Books, Identifying Causes of State Failure: The Case of Somalia - Your Research - Atlantic Community, Rand, Ayn, and Leonard Peikoff. Anthem. Signet, Somalia: Counting the cost of anarchy. BBC News, BBC, 26 Jan. 2011, 16 types of governments. Visual.ly, visual.ly/community/infographic/education/16-types-governments.