Without rules and laws what would happen to human nature? In Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s theme is the human nature, how it can change very quickly without laws and rules and turn into violence. Throughout the story he shows us many examples of how human nature can change and how all men can be evil. In 1940, During World War II, Golding enlisted in Royal Navy. He had been in many combats like destroying German battleships and invasion of Normandy on D-Day. With his experience during World War II, Golding observed how man kind can go from being civilized, classed men to being destruction machines. Golding also uses symbolism, and conflict to express his topic.
William Golding uses symbolism a lot in Lord of the Flies, almost any object he talks about symbolizes a greater meaning than their actual meanings. For example, the beast in the island, the beast symbolizes evil, it puts fear in the kids thinking there is something bad with them on the island. “Beasts! Of course we’re frightened sometimes but we put up with being frightened. Only Ralph says your scream in the night. What does that mean but nightmares? Anyway, you don’t hunt or build or help–you useless lot of cry babies! That’s what. And as for the fear- you’ll have to put up with that like the rest of us.” (Golding, p.g. 75) This is proof that Jack has turned into a worse person. There is no actual beast in the story other than the boys themselves. Golding uses the beast as a tool to express the dark side of the human nature.
Another symbol in Lord of the Flies is Jack, Jack is one of the kids that was on the plane. Once their uncivilized lives start on island, Golding uses Jack as an evil character, at first Jack is a civilized character who later becomes a beast and will kill anything on his way. The example of this is when Jack and others find a pig on the island but Jack couldn’t kill the pig because he was still civilized. Later in the story Jack kills the animal without even thinking. Jack also takes pride in his country and he is the leader of the hunters which displays him as a cruel leader like Hitler.
Violence is institutionalized in the militaries and politics in many countries, Golding expresses this topic by Jack and the army of hunters which they form it as a small military. Jack acts as a leader of this small army, and the way they talk to the other kids on the island is very authoritative. At first, the hunters had a mission, which was to feed the group of kids on the island. Their motive was to get food on the table for the group but as they spent more time on the island, they started to like killing and hurting animals. Their motive now was violence, this is proof that their social norms and morals were destroyed as they became more and more violent.
Sara Constantakis states “At first, he issues orders and leads hunts, showing that they will be better fed and safer for following him. As time goes on, however, he adopts a regal bearing, treating the other boys as if they are there for his amusement. He makes rules about appeasing the beast and orders boys who displease him to be flogged. He eventually orders the death of Ralph, who was once his friend, to put an end to any potential for competition for leadership.”(Constantakis 177-196). As Sara Constantakis stated, with time and more followers behind him Jack becomes more powerful and strong in the leadership position. He forgets all his norms he learned in the civilized world and eventually gives the execution order of Ralph. Ralph is the good leader in the island, he tries to help the boys on the island and to get them home, like by creating fire, he tries to get the attention of the ships passing by.
