Theme Of Savagery In William Golding's 'Lord Of The Flies'

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Mental institutions are for people who are mentally unstable, but what happens when those people become that way while stranded on a desolate island? In William Golding's, Lord of the Flies, that is the scenario that a group of previously civilized boys must face. They start out civilized as most people would, but then the majority of them turn into vile savages. This social commentary is an assumption of how the behavior of young boys can be affected by the given environment and the absence of adult supervision. As the novel progresses, the mental and physical states of the boys change from civil to savage, and this is clearly visible in the characters.
An example that Golding uses to show the boys being civilized at the beginning is voting …show more content…
After the feast, while the boys are doing their chant and dance, the text says, "Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society. They were glad to touch the brown backs of the fence that hemmed in the terror and made it governable"(152). These are different sides of Ralph and Piggy coming out compared to their normal and civil selves. At this point, the mental states of the boys on the island are losing most civility. For example, when the boys killed Simon, the text says they "screamed, struck, bit, tore [at his flesh]"(153). They did this to a human being, one that they had been living with for some time now; nobody in their right mind would kill a person, their friend at that, by tearing and biting at them. This shows that the boys are losing all civility. Ralph and Piggy, who, along with Samneric and some littluns, were the only boys attempting to hold onto civility, were even participating in this event. The boys' physical states right now are dirty, torn up, and worn by the sun. It seems as though that the boys are losing their civility as their physical appearances start to deteriorate. In that quote, it calls their society demented but secure which means that they are savage and they are comfortable with it because they are getting to feast with the meat of the …show more content…
When the naval officer is about to rescue the boys, the text says, "Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of a man's heart, and the fall through the air of a true, wise friend called Piggy"(202). This is a very powerful quote for how Ralph views the others being savages. It says the end of innocence which means the end of civility and all good; it says this because the group of boys that turn to savages go past what society views as good and right, and they create their own society with what society might view as wrong, but they view as perfectly normal because they have no other outside influences to convince them they are savage other than Ralph and Piggy who they refuse to listen to. When it says the darkness of a man's heart, it is either referring to Roger or Jack here. It could be referring to Roger because he leans on the lever that leads to Piggy's death, and has no feeling of remorse because of it, but on the other hand, it could be referring to Jack because he is the chief and creator of the savages that have a part in the deaths of both Simon and Piggy. Either way, those portions of that quote show what the mental states of the savage boys are in that they have lost innocence, as well as having dark hearts due to them becoming savages and murderers. The loss of his wise friend Piggy and the capturing of Samneric
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