“A stick sharpened at both ends”. What does Golding have to say about the nature of evil in
Lord of the Flies? (30 marks) - 1hour
Golding insinuates how evil humanity has become in all aspects, and portrays his pessimistic
and hopeless view that civilisation won’t be able to rectify the situation and that we will only
become more savage as time goes on. Golding advocates for the destruction of both
democracy and dictatorships by reflecting on the flaws within both political systems; he also
highlights the potential future dangers in Eurocentrism, in particular the British Empire.
Lord of the Flies is a religious allegory which is used by Golding to emphasise how evil
humanity is, as he suggests that perhaps God has sought to abandon society due to the gravity
of how evil we are, and how society as a whole has relinquished religious principles. The motif
of the Beast alludes to the serpent or Satan within the bible and accentuates the idea that
since God has already gone through the pain in allowing his son to be sacrificed for mankind
and is now unwilling to help a society which has sought to completely abolish any semblance
of religious principles. Golding thus kills Simon who is used to portray the social construct of
Jesus to express the abundance of evil within society; as his death conveys a sense of irony in
the fact that he has always been loyal to God and hasn’t descended into savagery like his
peers. However, Simon isn’t able to survive, as the world has now become adapted to the
savage ways exemplified by the rest of the boys, (highlighting why there’s no longer hope for
society), Simon like Jesus had hope in the boys, “you’ll get back to where you came from”, and
died similarly to Jesus as he was turned by the people he was about to save. “We’re reminded
of a Redeemer who offered men knowledge of salvation… only to be scourged by the people
he’d come to save” David Anderson. The use of children by Golding is due to his wish to depict
the children as imitators of adults, unlike Ballantye’s representation of them within Coral
Island, which Golding found to be unsatisfactory and untrue; the questioning by Piggy ``We
did everything adults would do. What went wrong?” is used to emphasise how the children
are completely flawed and have never, particularly due to WW2, have never had acceptable
behaviour modelled to them. Therefore, Golding illustrates how a vicious cycle will soon
ensure that the children will pass on these values to their children and society will only
become more savage not less. Golding alludes to the Cold War which had the biggest chance
of leading to nuclear destruction, after the horrific events of WW2 showing how society was
incapable of learning from its mistakes. The savagery within all of the boys is further reinforced
with the chant “Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Bash her in!” the use of monosyllabic language and
harsh consonants symbolises the primitiveness within the boys; the fact that it's a chant said
by all of the boys shows the cohesion in their savagery, perhaps Golding was referencing the
leaders of both the East and West in the fact that both of them are two sides of the same coin,
Lord of the Flies? (30 marks) - 1hour
Golding insinuates how evil humanity has become in all aspects, and portrays his pessimistic
and hopeless view that civilisation won’t be able to rectify the situation and that we will only
become more savage as time goes on. Golding advocates for the destruction of both
democracy and dictatorships by reflecting on the flaws within both political systems; he also
highlights the potential future dangers in Eurocentrism, in particular the British Empire.
Lord of the Flies is a religious allegory which is used by Golding to emphasise how evil
humanity is, as he suggests that perhaps God has sought to abandon society due to the gravity
of how evil we are, and how society as a whole has relinquished religious principles. The motif
of the Beast alludes to the serpent or Satan within the bible and accentuates the idea that
since God has already gone through the pain in allowing his son to be sacrificed for mankind
and is now unwilling to help a society which has sought to completely abolish any semblance
of religious principles. Golding thus kills Simon who is used to portray the social construct of
Jesus to express the abundance of evil within society; as his death conveys a sense of irony in
the fact that he has always been loyal to God and hasn’t descended into savagery like his
peers. However, Simon isn’t able to survive, as the world has now become adapted to the
savage ways exemplified by the rest of the boys, (highlighting why there’s no longer hope for
society), Simon like Jesus had hope in the boys, “you’ll get back to where you came from”, and
died similarly to Jesus as he was turned by the people he was about to save. “We’re reminded
of a Redeemer who offered men knowledge of salvation… only to be scourged by the people
he’d come to save” David Anderson. The use of children by Golding is due to his wish to depict
the children as imitators of adults, unlike Ballantye’s representation of them within Coral
Island, which Golding found to be unsatisfactory and untrue; the questioning by Piggy ``We
did everything adults would do. What went wrong?” is used to emphasise how the children
are completely flawed and have never, particularly due to WW2, have never had acceptable
behaviour modelled to them. Therefore, Golding illustrates how a vicious cycle will soon
ensure that the children will pass on these values to their children and society will only
become more savage not less. Golding alludes to the Cold War which had the biggest chance
of leading to nuclear destruction, after the horrific events of WW2 showing how society was
incapable of learning from its mistakes. The savagery within all of the boys is further reinforced
with the chant “Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Bash her in!” the use of monosyllabic language and
harsh consonants symbolises the primitiveness within the boys; the fact that it's a chant said
by all of the boys shows the cohesion in their savagery, perhaps Golding was referencing the
leaders of both the East and West in the fact that both of them are two sides of the same coin,
