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    Paper On Lord of The Flies

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    Margie Jimenez
    The society depicted in William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies represents a community that has lost its moral and social order. When a group of English schoolboys are stranded alone on a deserted island after a plane crash, they initially try to establish an organized and democratic society by appointing a leader. However, conflicts over leadership cause the boys' value systems to erode as they give in to desires for power and abandon morality. Their failed attempts to maintain order show what can happen when a moral code is forgotten and social structures collapse.

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    Paper On Lord of The Flies

    Uploaded by

    Margie Jimenez
    505 views3 pages
    The society depicted in William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies represents a community that has lost its moral and social order. When a group of English schoolboys are stranded alone on a deserted island after a plane crash, they initially try to establish an organized and democratic society by appointing a leader. However, conflicts over leadership cause the boys' value systems to erode as they give in to desires for power and abandon morality. Their failed attempts to maintain order show what can happen when a moral code is forgotten and social structures collapse.

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    Paper on Lord of the Flies

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    The society depicted in William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies represents a community that has lost its moral and social order. When a group of English schoolboys are stranded alone on a deserted island after a plane crash, they initially try to establish an organized and democratic society by appointing a leader. However, conflicts over leadership cause the boys' value systems to erode as they give in to desires for power and abandon morality. Their failed attempts to maintain order show what can happen when a moral code is forgotten and social structures collapse.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc
    505 views3 pages

    Paper On Lord of The Flies

    Uploaded by

    Margie Jimenez
    The society depicted in William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies represents a community that has lost its moral and social order. When a group of English schoolboys are stranded alone on a deserted island after a plane crash, they initially try to establish an organized and democratic society by appointing a leader. However, conflicts over leadership cause the boys' value systems to erode as they give in to desires for power and abandon morality. Their failed attempts to maintain order show what can happen when a moral code is forgotten and social structures collapse.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc
    of 3

    Margaret Jimenez June, 2007

    Lord of the Flies


    By William Golding

    One of the definitions for the word “society” as found online in Dictionary.com is “an

    organized group of persons associated together for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific,

    political, patriotic, or other purposes.” The important words in this particular definition are

    “organized” and “associated together”. These words denote what I would describe as a society

    formed by a group of persons who live their lives in an orderly fashion, are respectful of one

    another and aim to live their lives in accord. My own characterization of what makes an ideal

    society would be a place where morality is valued, rules are accepted and obeyed, differences

    embraced, liberties respected, and benevolence practiced - all of which is totally contrary to the

    societal disorder that is presented in the book authored by William Golding titled Lord of the

    Flies.

    The society described throughout the pages of the aforementioned book, Lord of the

    Flies, is representative of a community gone awry. A young group of English schoolboys are

    stranded on a deserted island after their plane crashes. They find themselves alone and without

    any adult supervision. At first they attempt to create what is a semblance of an ordered society

    by appointing a leader to give them instruction and provide guidance. Ralph, their chosen leader

    quickly gives orders to establish shelter, create and maintain a fire and hunt for sustenance and

    for awhile it is so. But the conflicts that begin to form over their choice of leader signals the

    beginning of the end of their attempts at democracy and order. The value systems with which

    they have lived their lives up until that point slowly begin to erode as they give in to their base

    emotions and desires in their lust for power.

    1
    One can say that the society represented throughout the pages of the aforementioned

    book is indicative of what occurs when moral code is forgotten and social order is lost yet others

    would probably counter that it is better described as what social order should be - the experience

    of having total liberty or license to do as your heart desires. Freedom defined in Dictionary.com

    as “the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action” is an action desired by

    many, especially those who call themselves “libertarians”.

    Libertarianism as described in Wikipedia.com is a political philosophy maintaining that

    all persons are the absolute owners of their own lives and should be free to do whatever they

    wish with their persons or property, provided they allow others the same liberty. Those who

    criticize libertarianism tend to focus on issues of tradition and personal morality, by asserting

    that the far-reaching personal freedoms promoted by libertarians encourage unhealthy and

    immoral behavior and undermine religion. Libertarians however are aware of this elucidation of

    their beliefs and therefore argue that by taking personal responsibility for their actions and

    practicing good works they demonstrate an individual approach to liberty, which they assert

    provides both a more effective and more ethical way to prosperity and peaceful coexistence.

    The idea of libertarianism seems to work in theory but we should note that the practice of

    true freedom in a society is not wholly based on philosophies and or doctrines but rather on

    individual ethos or codes of moral conduct. Freedom is never free if the fundamental character

    of a society is characterized by amorality. Moral codes are necessary for any society to survive

    for without it freedom becomes fragmented forming communities where only the strong survive

    and the weak are crushed, in other words an uncivilized society.

    2
    We no longer live in barbaric times where lawlessness, cruelty and violence abound. The

    world we live in today is so diverse and I hold no notions that ideal societies even exist. It is our

    differences that make us all unique and our world is a hodgepodge of cultures and color yet a

    common thread is that we can make it a civilized place by our actions. Most of us are taught

    during our formative years to distinguish right from wrong. We are taught to be respectful.

    Many of us are brought up in devout homes where faith and religion instills in us a strict moral

    code that seeks to keep on us straight paths. We are taught to do to others as we would have

    them do to us. We are taught to take responsibility for our personal choices and in doing so we

    help maintain an order to society and hopefully serve as examples thereof. We constitute a

    civilized society.

    Inherent in man is the ability to make good, rational, ethical and moral choices that will

    positively affect our fellow man and in doing so we can become the model society that cares one

    for another, helps the disadvantaged and protects the unprotected. Like so many in this world,

    the boys in Lord of the Flies allowed themselves to be shaped by their circumstances. They

    allowed the hardships they faced, the calamity they suffered and their own immaturity to wreak

    destruction on their attempts to form a civilized society. They forgot the moral lessons they had

    been taught up to that point. We can learn a lesson from this story and it is that we don’t need to

    let our negative circumstances debase or destroy the moral soul within us. Instead we need to

    look deep within ourselves, see the good that dwells within us, allow life hard lessons to develop

    and mature us and use these experiences to ensure that we make society fit our ideal, however we

    may define it.

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