There is a beast within everyone that without the proper guidance and instruction, can be unleashed and cause behavior referred to as barbaric. William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies takes place during the first World War when a plane full of British schoolboys is shot down and crashes on a deserted tropical island. They immediately presume that it will be all fun and games. Ralph, a boy who calls the group together by blowing into a conch, is deemed leader and begins to set rules and plans for the future. As the boys quickly lose interest in the day-to-day tasks they are asked to perform, they waste their time playing and hunting pigs. Jack, an aggressive and arrogant boy, encourages this behavior by taking out the boys routinely to help him catch and kill a pig. When Jack defies Ralph’s authority, the boys degenerate into a savage state of mind that overtakes their innocence and common sense. Without the guidance of authority and law, the youth of the world would become evil and egocentric. …show more content…
Jack comes to the island put together and determined to survive, saying that, “‘We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages’” (Golding 42). They were Englishmen, meaning they thought they would do well in this situation because of their background and how they were raised. However, while hunting for the first time, he “for a minute became less a hunter than a furtive thing, ape-like among the tangle of trees” (Golding 49). Once Jack feels the exhilaration of hunting, it consumes his mind to the point where he loses all the intelligence and common sense he had before. His main focus turns from rescue to hunting. The lack of order causes the boys to lose sight of what is most essential to their survival on the