Hector Cervantes
February 22, 2011
Mrs. Guerard
4th period

We Are Born With Evil
In the everyday life we always witness some sort of cruel act inflicted by a human on to another. Cruel actions range from people verbally to physically hurting others. We ask ourselves why people commit these acts. We tell ourselves that those are just the evil kind of people but like William Golding said “We are born with evil in us, and cruelty is a part of this.” This statement is true, we are all born with evil in us and we can all be cruel. It’s in our nature, something we cannot rid ourselves of. Although evil is in our nature, we can do our best and avoid it.
First reason why I agree with Golding’s statement is because he shows how everyone has evil in them through a realistic case scenario. In Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, the kids were young, their ages ranged from 5 years old to around 12 years old. These kids started as innocent boys but later transformed into little savages. You wouldn’t think 5 year old boys would have the guts to hunt for their own food or even know how to hunt but these kids did. These kids prove that we are born with evil in us because they weren’t thought how to hunt but they knew how because it’s in their nature. We don’t do it because it is uncivil and inhumane like. People might use the character, Simon to argue that not everyone is evil because in the book Simon never really did anything cruel. Although Simon never showed a sign of him becoming savage, he did have vision of an evil beast. Simon envisions this evil beast when he has seizures due to his epilepsy. How is it that Simon can vision something evil and fear it, if there is no evil in him? It’s like asking how you can know what a certain food taste like if you’ve never had it before. You can’t, so this means that Simon was born with evil in him but just learned to avoid it.
Second reason why I agree with Golding’s statement is because I see violence in people all the time. When I babysit my nephews I notice that they are mean to each other. My nephews like play a lot and every time things don’t go the way they want them to, they fight. I think the reason they fight, is so that they can determine who can have their way. I think this because I see this on animal shows all the time and since we’re also animals, I figured that it’s normal behavior for us to fight. Like in animal shows, usually the bigger opponent wins like with my nephew. With my nephews the older one ends up winning and my younger nephew cries and goes to find something else to do. When this happens I sometimes yell at them but they still do it again so instead I make my older nephew feel guilty or spoil my younger nephew. I do that so that they learn to not behave like little savages and more like civil human beings.
Third reason why I think Golding’s statement is right is because I without evil there is no point in life. That’s why world peace is impossible to achieve. Life without any problems would be really boring. Imagine if this world was in complete peace and happiness, there would be no reason to go to school or work. If you didn’t go to work no one would get mad and there would be no problem if you didn’t pay taxes. If you didn’t pay taxes there would be no school. With no school not many people would be smart. As you can see list can go on forever about things going wrong. That why we need problems in this world and that is why we should be born with evil in us so that no one could raise us to not cause problems.
All in all, we are not perfect, evil is upon us and cruelty is a part of it. So there isn’t such thing as bad kind of people and we can’t say, “Some people are just born with bad in them” because we were all born with evil in us. I guess it’s okay to say that we were once savages but now we have become something better by learning to avoid being evil. Although we can avoid it we cannot escape it because it is in our nature. Golding was right by saying “We are born with evil in us, and cruelty is a part of this.”