Famous writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau once said “The savage in man is never quite eradicated”. Henry Thoreau was alive at a very disturbing time in our country's history, he died about a year after the civil war started; he would have seen the savagery committed against soldiers from the North and the South. At that time there would have been many well educated men reverting their primitive selves and killing people for no reason. He believed that no matter how much we educate someone, or groom them to be society’s finest, they will always have a small part of themselves that doesn’t evolve. In the right situation, this small part can take over a person’s whole personality and cause them to act like someone they aren’t. In the novel, …show more content…
This theme is demonstrated by Golding’s purposeful murder of Piggy and the Yale experiment administered by Milgram. The Milgram experiment conducted at Yale University shows test subjects that were told that they were helping assist a professor through teaching with pain. The test subjects were put on the outside of an enclosed room so that they couldn’t see inside. There were actors inside that were the “students”, any time a “student” would get an answer wrong, the test subject was instructed to administer an electrical shock. The electric shock was not real, but there were reactions pre-recorded in order to make the pain seem realistic. Most of the test subjects were terribly upset with idea of hurting these people, but “ a stunning 65 percent of those taking part obeyed the commands to administer electrical shocks all the way up to the last, potentially lethal switch…” (Schwartz 2). This shows that when people are put in their position of power, even for a short time people can become savage. The test subjects were put under strenuous situations, and it caused them to show their true colors. More than half of the subjects would have killed someone if the professor had told them to. This shows that the power clouds the judgement of many people. This is the process of putting the good apples in a bad barrel. This same idea is shown by Golding when Rodger murders Piggy. In this case the metaphorical barrel is the island. In this scenario, the boys have divided the island in half. Jack has split off with his new tribe, they come and steal Piggy’s specs that are used for the fire. Jack and Piggy both decide to do something about it. They go to meet Jack on “castle rock” in the area of Jack’s tribe. The meeting gets out of control and Piggy starts frantically screaming about the conch, at this point Rodger was away from all of the commotion, he feels “a sense of