Tabula Rasa Quotes

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Tabula Rasa
Tabula Rasa is a latin word translating to mean “blank slate”. William Golding’s novel titled Lord of the Flies is about a group of innocent boys whose plane is shot down during war and crashes on an island where they are free from the rules of society. This “Tabula Rasa” or blank slate represented by the island is the setting where the boys descend into savagery and the collapse of civilization occurs. Meaning can be drawn from Golding’s use of setting because it so conveniently disproves Rousseau’s Theory of Natural Man which states that man is inherently good, and society leads to corruption. However, this is not the case in this novel because of the boys are isolated from society, the island is depicted as paradise, and it is man who causes disruptions to nature. The island is the key element in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies that leads in disproving Rousseau's Theory of Natural Man due to aspects of the setting having an enormous effect on the growing corruption of the boys.

Golding places the innocent boys on an island that is uninhabited and isolated from society creating a microcosm expressing that
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This descend into savagery is seen more vividly in the uncontrolled fire, “Acres of black and yellow smoke rolled steadily toward the sea. At the sight of the flames and the irresistible course of the fire, the boys broke into shrill, excited cheering. [...] [Ralph’s] knowledge and the awe made him savage.” (Golding 34) At the end of the novel Jack sets fire to the whole island depicting the complete disintegration of civilization, “[Jack and friends] had smoked [Ralph] out and set the island on fire.”(Golding 197) In analyzing this little hope remains. As the novel progresses so does the progression of the inevitable corruption of man and Golding depicts this by artistically making the boys cause disruptions to the island that worsen and