How is the Struggle between Good and Evil presented in Lord of the Flies? Essay

Lord of the Flies was indite by Word War II veteran William Golding and follows the lives of a sort of drill boys who crash land on a tropical island after an atomic bomb goes off. The novel starts like an adventure baloney of a assemblage of boys free to do what they want in paradise with the lose of adult control. However the story quickly develops into a deeply burdeny insight into the deplorable of hu objet dart character and a tale of the anticipate little trial for the survival of easily. The author cin one casentrates on the decent from commonwealth to chaos. He presents the tale as the struggle between good and abomination finished a variety of methods from physical struggles, like the fights between jackass and Ralph, to pestilent passage of armss for control, like Jacks constant power mongering and undermining of Ralph.Golding uses a sm either convention of main characters to tell the majority of the story. First there is Ralph, the boy with fair(a) hai r, he is the first character the reader is introduced to and is instantly likeable as he is of course attractive and has a bevy of charisma. The early(a) boys rude(a)ly respect him because of these attri merelyes and he makes a good leader because of this. The story revolves close to Ralph and his emotions. Ralph is tempted by Jack and evil-minded trends but is undoubtedly good and the hero. Then there is Piggy, shorterand very fat, the second to be introduced. Piggy is the turnaround of Ralph in terms of looks and is an easy target for bullying.Piggy nevertheless much disliked is most likely the smartest on the island, he is Ralphs side of information and has remarkable commonsense and is an original thinker. In the civilised worldly concern Piggy would be respected, on the island he was forced to solitude finished no fault of his own because of his looks. Piggy is like Ralph, good, but contrasted Ralph is never tempted by evil. Then there is Jack, the leader of th e choir who pop off the chaseers. Jack rules by fear alone and does not like to plowsh be power. I ought to be chief, said Jack with a simple arrogance. So he is deeply resentful of Ralph being chosen diplomatically as leader. Besides being a leader he is a bully, keep out up fatty, Jack targets piggy the most while he starts off gaining Ralphs trust and broods secretly over his humiliation of popular defeat. Jack is the main source of evil on the island and drives the island into brutality with his fixation with capture and power grabbing.Ralph represents goods struggle with evil with his actions. To start with he is tempted by Jack and hunting, Ralph watched them the hunters envious and resentful. And this is reflected in the way he treats Piggy at the opening he mocks him and does not get into him seriously, Piggy Ralph shrieked with laughter, by the end he is to Ralph the true, wise maven called Piggy. Golding has shown a drifting crustal plate through the apply at the beginning Ralph and Jack be great friends, by the end they ar mortal enemies. As Jack becomes less civilised Ralph likes him less and as Ralph becomes more civilised he likes Piggy more. Ralph represents the failing battle of good against evil. steady though at long last he was bring through, he failed to stop evil and withstand order, peace or veritable(a) the excite.Jack represents evil in the book and is typically comp atomic number 18d with Hitler and other evil dictators in history. The simplicity of Jack is the grand part about him. He acts on his feelings and rules eitherone by fear and dictating to everyone one. He is arrogant, determined, quite clever, bossy and a bully. At the start he is all the way a bad person and there argon dark hints of his evil, wanton blue eyes, frustrated now, and turning, or ready to turn to anger. However he is still hardly a typical bully, nothing special, just in a special situation. Jack controls the hunters who start as the choir but descend into savagery following Jack. It is who Jack is at the beginning of the story compared to who he becomes that shows how evil dominates the island. Jack like many others is primarily pertain with meat, hunting, games and having fun no matter who they hurt. This makes him appealing and as Ralph constantly tries to hold the rules Jack uses this to undermine Ralph and strengthen his own position. For example Jack criticises Ralph for not hunting and being bossy.Golding also uses symbolism to present the struggle between good and evil. Firstly there is the Conch. This object is used by Ralph to call meetings and to keep order in a gathering by making a rule that scarcely the holder of the Conch may speak. The Conch represents country and begins as a beautiful colourful object, a deep cream, stirred here and there with faded pink. But as savagery move into the island it gets duller and darker until Roger smashes it into a thousand white fragwork forcets.This shows how as evil creeps into the island democracy and rules become less and less relevant until they are destroyed solely by evil, embodied in this case by Roger. The fire represents mans inability to control nature. The fire is used to cook meat and to try and signal for a rescue. However as savagery increases the fire is not used as a signal, it is used only for preparation meat. This shows how whatever of the boys give up on civilisation and loose hope of it coming back. In the end the hunters try to use the fire to slaughter Ralph. Ironically this act of subtle destruction and chaos leads to the resurrection of society on the island through the arrival of the rescue boat.Simon and Roger represent cardinal ends of a scale in the book. Golding has used Roger as a mold of true evil while using Simon as a Jesus like pure good character. Both are loners with few friends and stay outside the group but when it is involved in good things, like building huts, Simon joins in. As the is land descends into savagery Roger not only joins in but also becomes as powerful as Jack wielding a nameless authority. Of course as Simon is the representation of good he is destroyed by evil. Roger as the representation of evil not only helps to destroy Simon, but also murders Piggy. These two characters also help to define the decent into savagery. At the beginning when Ralph has just been elected leader, Simon goes with the Jack and Ralph exploring the island.He is at his most popular at this point and this shows how at the beginning good people like Simon are very expectable. Before the end Simon is murdered and by the time Ralph is run Roger is tight as powerful as Jack. Roger edged past the Chief, only just avoiding pushing him with his shoulder. This shows how powerful Roger has become, because while you would think all of Jacks followers fear or at the least respect him Roger clearly has little of either for Jack as he nearly knocks him over while passing by. This shows h ow evil has began to dominate the group and makes it create care like Jake is no longer evil enough to control the group. This shows that evil is its own master and Roger would probably go on to take over the group, as he is so evil and therefore powerful.Golding experiences of WWII are linked to the entire book. In WWII Golding would reach seen un-imaginable evil, men fighting men to the death merciless and horrible to watch. The ideas outlineed in the book affirm explanations to why evil dominates good. Firstly it is easier to be evil and a lot more fun. The novel shows this by hunting and other games. During a hunt a boy must cause pain to an animal and ultimately kill it, but that is not considered as the pleasure is a do drugs to the young boys minds which none can deny. The same goes for games involving others being hurt, they know that they are causing pain but slowly they begin to care less and less. They cause more and more pain to the human they are hunting letting th e excitement overwhelm them, until an event like the death of Simon happens and boundaries have been get over. By then there is no turning back and the once innocent boy playing games are lost in savagery and they have become easy to control with fear and hunting. That is how Jack gained his power. second being good all the time is near impossible and boring. eve Ralph joins the hunt and is in fact the first to make fun of Piggy. In fact Ralph is the first to call Piggy Piggy, his real names Piggy. And begin the cycle of bullying that leads to his death. What Golding shows by this is nobody, not a saint, a pope or anybody has ever gone through life without sufficeing, however small, some evil consciously. Every boy on the island is tempted and in some way they all commit some form of evil, whether it is the name business of a weaker boy to the murder of another, they all do it. There are only two exceptions Piggy, because he is not strong enough to perform evil and Simon, because he is pure good. But in reality no one exists like Simon, unless you believe in Jesus (and what the Bible teaches) and even if you do then you also believe he was more than human.third the line between good and evil is unclear. As Golding shows the decent into atrociousness is slow, as the island changes boundaries of acceptance change. To start in a private school the children would not have bullied an other, as they did to Piggy, as the laws of there school would visit them. Once on the island there new freedom is a opulence and they do not hesitate to call others by names. However they all still cling to civilisation, for a while at least, as at the beginning none would attack another without justification. As the island changes the boundaries are pushed so far that murder is justifiable. As mentioned before once the boundaries are crossed there is no going back.Golding offers another explanation to the reason for evils victory, the iniquity of mans heart perhaps men are nat urally evil. If one takes this mentality then in reality there is no struggle between good and evil just resistance as evil dominates and men become moraleless creatures driven only by prefatory desire. Books like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter portray evil as a different species, as men who are corrupted and not as Golding describes men in there natural and basic form. Lord of the Flies is perhaps the only novel which describes the battle between good and evil as the inner battle which every man must face.Simon was a visionary and his realisation is what Golding was trying to say, the sentient being they all feared was within them. In other words they feared each other and themselves but could not realise this. Golding presents the struggle between good and evil as a battle doomed from the start. He portrays men as naturally evil and only the few who cling to civilisation as good, but they are ultimately doomed as the three who do stay true to humanity are destroyed save Ralph who is rescued by luck. Lord of the Flies shows how without the fragile walls of society what human nature is truly like and why evil in the end bequeath always be able to dominate good.