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Evil and Corruption in Lord of the Flies

6 Pages 1573 Words May 2016

William Golding, an Englishman who was a commander in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, had been in close contact with the horrors of war. This made him realise that evil is inherently present in each one of us, this evil is curbed by civilized society and democracy, but when the veneers of society break down, the inherent savagery of man comes to the surface and causes widespread devastation. Being a schoolmaster, Golding was familiar with young boys and thus he centres his novel around them. In his novel ‘Lord of the Flies’, Golding strives to shatter the myth that children are completely innocent and taintless, it is society that corrupts them. He tries to show that each human being is born with the potential for evil.
The novel was published in 1954, when the two super-powers of the world (U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R.) were plunged in a Cold War with each other. This led to there being an omnipresent threat of the occurrence of a nuclear war, a glimpse of which the world had already seen when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were attacked by atom bombs. The novel is set in a hypothetical future, in the midst of a nuclear war. “Didn’t you hear what the pilot said? About the atom bomb? They’re all dead.” Piggy tells Ralph – confirming our assumptions about the nature of the war. Although the novel does not allude to a specific war or a specific time frame, it reminds us of several similar events that occurred around the Second World War.
The boys crash-land on a previously uninhabited island and attempt to form a society. They are very attracted to democratic ideals, ‘Vote for a chief!’ they exclaim excitedly, thus taking public consent into account. A majority elects Ralph as leader, thus he becomes a symbol of democracy. Another symbol of democracy is the conch, the object used to summon all the others, the boys must have the conch in their hands if they wish to speak – thus it provides them the power to express th...

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