The Beast of Society essays

The Beast of Society essays The book Lord of the Flies by William Golding captures the faults and childish actions of adults and their so called sophisticated governments of today. The book reveals the government as malicious manifestations of human nature. At the beginning of the book the boys establish a miniature controlled government with leaders, hunters, shelter builders and the conch, which is the symbol of power. The boys at the beginning still have their youthful innocence so they take the idea of a government lightly, and with the best of intentions. When the boys establish power the toy of voting was almost as pleasing as the conch, which is not an unusual reaction for participants in a new government (pg 22). As the novel continues, the boys become more and more wrapped up in their own power and in the government system. They become determined to kill the beast, which they believe to be the evil monster. The children become more and more gluttonous and they begin to go into killing frenzies. They ki ll an innocent sow, which is described in the literature, which symbolizes a violent rape. Once this killing is done the head of the sow, mounted on a stick sharpened on both ends, tells Simon, You knew, didnt you? Im part of you? Close, close, close! Im the reason why its no go? Why things are the way they are? (pg 193). This quote shows that the beast, the evil that the boys had been trying so hard to avoid or kill, is actually themselves. At the end of the book the boys have basically gone to war with Ralf, and destroyed the island and their resources with a great fire, which would be equivalent to a bomb. When Ralf runs out of the forest, he sees the naval officer clean cut with a sub-machine gun and cruiser. Ralf realizes that this barbaric awful behavior isnt just confined to their little island, but is human nature, and Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of mans heart, a...