Lord of the Flies and William Golding Thesis

1329 Words6 Pages
In the Lord of the Flies, William Golding shows the truth behind human nature by giving an example of how quickly people lose their touch with civilization. Hobbes explains his views on human nature, which tie in with Lord of the Flies. William Golding fulfills Hobbes’ ideas about man with Lord of the Flies in the moments when he progressively shows the boys begin to lose their humanity, when he describes the growing conflict between Ralph and Jack’s need of being the leader in their new society, and when he shows how the boys live in constant fear of death because they don’t know anything about the island they are living in. To begin with, William Golding supports Hobbes’ views of man by showing how gradually over time, the boys lose their humanity because there is no common power on the island. Hobbes writes about people destroying themselves and each other if there is no common power to keep the people in check. If people are behaving what we consider normal or humanly, they’re obviously going to destroy each other. They become more savage than human and do not think straight nor perceive the consequences of their actions. Hobbes states, “(which amongst them have no common power to keep them in quiet is far enough to make them destroy each other) … Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war (Hobbes).” In other words, Hobbes says that if there are no laws, no leader, or no set of rules that will keep them in order, they will live in a constant time of war, and will destroy each other. This is reasonably true because if there isn’t anyone or anything to say what is right from wrong, or to give orders, everyone will want to govern themselves. When you allow people too much freedom like this, it will create chaos in their society. Now, in Lord of the Flies after

More about Lord of the Flies and William Golding Thesis

Open Document