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Lord of the flies
In religion, ethics, philosophy, and psychology "good and evil" is a very common dichotomy. In
cultures with Manichaean and Abrahamic religious influence, evil is usually perceived as
the dualistic antagonistic opposite of good, in which good should prevail and evil should be defeated
Evil, in a general context, is the absence or opposite of that which is described as being good. Often,
evil is used to denote profound immorality. In certain religious contexts, evil has been described as
a supernatural force. Definitions of evil vary, as does the analysis of its motives. However, elements
that are commonly associated with evil involve unbalanced behavior involving
expediency, selfishness, ignorance, or neglect.
The modern philosophical questions regarding good and evil are subsumed into three major areas of
study: meta-ethics concerning the nature of good and evil, normative ethics concerning how we ought
to behave, and applied ethics concerning particular moral issues.
One of the significant themes recurrently dealt with by the novelists all over the world is the struggle of
man throughout his life and how evil is deeply rooted within his personality. Among the well-known
novelists who have given a lot of importance to the subject of evil being man's means to survive in this
harsh world is the American novelist William Golding (1911-1993).
One of the important novels written by William Golding that portrays such a dark image of the human
being is The Inheritors. This novel published in 1955 makes a comparison between the behavior of the
pre-historic man, the Neanderthal, and the more sophisticated being, the Homo Sapiens
In The Inheritors, William Golding tries to depict man's aptness for evil. This idea is conveyed by the story
of the prehistoric man whose natural and peaceful life is deformed by the new aggressive man and the
consequences of this intrusion. The novel starts with a group of prehistoric people, a Neanderthal tribe,
migrating to their summer camping in the mountains. There, three of them, Fa, Lok, and Liku go to search
for food but they see a carcass of a doe surrounded by wild animals. Suddenly a strange face appears on
the island shore and shoots Lok with a poisonous arrow which Lok has never seen before.
Later on, the new people, the Homo Sapiens, attack the camp, kill Nil and the old woman and take Liku
and her new born baby as prisoners. Lok and Fa trace the new people to their camp. They see wild
performance of the new people. At the end, the new people kill all the Neanderthals and become glad to
get rid of the threat represented by these devils of the forest, as they call them. Thus, the novel portrays
two primarily different groups of people: the Neanderthals and the Homo Sapiens. Golding makes a
comparison between the primitive man who is innocent and naive and the new man who is complicated
and aggressive.
Good and evil are concepting each person deals with every day; often unconsciously. However
differently each person perceives them, sometimes one happens to wonder where one’s sense of
morality comes from, and what the source of one’s particular actions or beliefs is. What leads one to
make the very decisions one does? What are the motives of one’s actions? And what is one’s nature
like? These are some issues this thesis aims to explore, though it cannot give definite answers.
Furthermore, there is a question of why one should try to be good, for every person has limitations and
somewhat tends to act wrongly. As Oswald Chambers remarks: “All noble things are difficult,” and one
naturally and inevitably fails in one’s struggle for goodness. Yet, it seems that it can provide one with a
sort of deep, inner happiness—it seems to be worth it, although it is impossible to achieve.
Lord of the flies
Golding describes his intention of writing Lord of the Flies as: “an attempt to trace the defects of society
back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical
nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable” . In
other words, according to Golding, man has to be ethical by himself; his morality must not be imposed
upon him by any authority: social, political, or religious.
In Lord of the Flies, he isolates his boys on an island, which appears to be an ideal place concerning
resources and safety, so that the true nature of the boys is revealed by itself, not interrupted by any
external factors. He also “keeps them below the age of overt sex, for he wishes to exclude this issue as a
causal factor. He excludes too private property and the struggle for survival” (Spitz 23). Gradually, the
boys abandon the ethical background of the society, which is a long way away, and almost all of them
succumb to the evil—the beast—hidden within them. The conclusions Golding reaches about the nature
of man are very pessimistic; however, these assumptions come from his World War Two experience,
which had a deep influence over him, particularly at the time he wrote the novel, for he had seen many
brutalities a man was capable of doing to another man during his service in the Navy
The sudden ending of the story—when the reader is still in tension—presents a challenge to them: what
is the conclusion? According to Baker, “Golding’s allegory, Lord of the Flies, offers no real hope for
redemption. Golding kills off the only saint available (as history obliges him to do) and demonstrates the
inadequacy of a decent leader (Ralph) who is at once too innocent and ignorant of the human heart to
save the day from darkness” .
Although there is not any clear conclusion on the part of Golding, his intention was probably what Baker
suggests. However, as Kinkead-Weekes and Gregor remind us throughout their study, it is the reader who
is to decide what the conclusion is for them: Ralph’s weeping, they argue, might be Golding’s “response,
but not an answer” .

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