Lord of the Flies: Mankind's Essential Illness

1125 Words5 Pages
English Homework Haider Aslam 9D 23.11.2013 Mankind's Essential Illness This extensive study is to try to figure out the meaning of William Golding's phrase 'mankind's essential illness'. He states this in Chapter 5 'Beast from air'. In chapter 5 we see that Ralph calls to order a very 'serious' meeting one that has not been seen with the boys so far. Golding tells us that he feels fairly frustrated and bitter from the events happening in chapter 4. We had seen his disappointment in Jack and his hunters for putting out the fire and now we see this taken up to another level. During this meeting the topic of conversation turns to the alleged 'beastie' as the boys are discussing it; one boy suggests that the beast naturally eats pig, this then jumps into another boys remark that: 'We eat pig' the possible causes for the authors input for this remark will be explained in the upcoming paragraphs. A while after in an effort to present his thoughts Simon says the following; `What I meant is... maybe it's only us.'...Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness."-Simon This is when we first see the phrase 'mankind's essential illness' as a thought of Simons; showing his understanding of the matter is far superior to his age. Simon proposes this during a meeting discussing the beast. Interruptions from the other boys for the source of the beast start to spring up however Simon is the only one who perceives this beast not as an alleged monster of reality, but rather an 'essential' ingredient in every humans mind. These words reiterate Golding's themes of potential evil and loss of innocence without civilisation. Although Simon is still inarticulate in his thoughts and does not fully understand himself, he is the only one that grasps the true character of the beast-
Open Document