Greed, Fear, and Savagery in The Lord of The Flies by William Golding

Raw human characteristics are not meant to sustain for the future, therefore innate yearns should be controlled to maximize mankind’s potential to live happily.

William Golding showcases greed, savagery, and thirst for power through children in The Lord Of The Flies. Over the course of the book, children are presented with various struggles hindering them to live and maintain their society, without the enforcement of adults. Each and every one of these children bring out many of man’s flaws, eventually leading to turmoil within their society. The desires for man can consume the larger goal of happiness, life, and sustainability. Therefore failure of civilization and mankind is due to lack of self-restraint in the absence of enforcement, man’s greed for power, and fear due to the beast. Greed can take various forms in terms of power, wealth and social envy. Throughout lord of the flies, Jack is greedy for power and breaks all parameters to attain it. Golding remarks, ” “Conch! Conch!” shouted Jack. “We don’t need the conch anymore. We know who ought to say things. What good did Simon do speaking, or Bill, or Walter? It’s time some people knew they’ve got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us. ” Jack is willing to forgo modern ruling for his own as well as all socially accepted virtues. He is self-centered and his main focus is to hunt. To achieve his goal, he does not mind rukus and turmoil under his rule. The greed of his own ambitions is tainting his rational and common sense therefore he has also forgone the conch, which symbolized civilization, therefore he is incoprehendile of the future that awaits.

Fear is known to be lethal once it succumbed to. Golding states “fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream. There aren’t any beasts to be afraid of on this island. Serve you right if something did get you, you useless lot of cry-babies!”. Fear is non-existent till the point its comes across one’s conscious. The realm of fear is merely an association to hypothetical ideas. In the realm of fear, the littluns were devoured and could not comprehend the state of matter. Later in the story, Jack and his tribe offer a sacrifice to the beast. This is in response to their fear, therefore to fall to the beast. Fear is what has driven the group downhill and is what lead to each characters personal battles with it. In the tribes case, fear overcame them so they did all they can to ease it without realising the bigger picture. Simon and Piggy have resisted the fear and had continually put forth their efforts the save the, Innate savagery is within every character in lord of the flies and it is up to their will if they are allowing the “id” to possess them.

Many actions are due to their innate savagery as children in The Lord Of The Flies are able to commit gruetesc acts that were signs of political downfall. “Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!” Jacks id is prominent in this scene and the if can be a major flaw for mankind. If too much of the id comes into reality, one loses morality and resorts to primitive behavior. Jacks chant influences the others as they start to take Jacks side near the end of the story. Each individual is given equal opportunity to steer away from a dark path but it is up to them if they are capable of doing so.

All throughout LOTF we see the fall of mankind and its greatest flaws are put forth. Greed, fear, and savagery propel the downfall of any hierarchy. Whenever a child did something wrong, was a signal of loss of innocence. Once the pattern gained enough momentum, the children were lured into madness and caused them to ruin themselves. The downfall is a result of overarching power, essentially controlling an individual’s actions.