Young Boys example essay topic

Analysis Lord of the Flies dramatizes the conflict between the civilizing instinct and the barbarizing instinct that exists in all human beings. Every artistic choice that Golding makes in the novel is designed to emphasize the struggle between the ordering elements of society, which include morality, order, law, and culture, and the chaotic elements of humanity's savage animal instincts, which include anarchy, bloodlust, the desire for power, amorality, selfishness, and violence. His dramatic technique is to show the rise and swift fall of an isolated, impromptu civilization, which is torn to pieces by the savage instincts of the people who comprise it. In this first chapter, Golding establishes the parameters within which this civilization will function. To begin with, it will be populated solely with boys, the group of young English boys shot down over the wild jungle island on which the action is set. Golding's choice to make his characters boys is significant: the young boys are only half formed, perched between culture and savagery in such a way as to embody the novel's thematic conflict.

Golding's assumption throughout the novel is that the constraints of morality and society are learned rather than innate, that the human tendency to obey rules, behave peacefully, and follow orders is imposed by a system of power and control and is not in itself a fundamental part of human nature. Young boys are a fitting illustration of this premise, as they exist in a constant state of tension with regard to the rules and regulations they are expected to follow. Left on their own, they often behave with instinctive cruelty and violence. By making his civilization a product of preadolescent boys's ocial instincts, Golding endangers it from the beginning.

In Chapter 1, the boys, still unsure of how to behave with no adult presence to control their behavior, largely stick to the learned behaviors of civilization and order, attempting to re-create the structures of society on their deserted island: they elect a leader, establish a division of labor, and set about systematically exploring the island. But even at this early stage, the danger posed to their civilization by their innate instincts is visible in their taunting of Piggy and in Jack's ferocious desire to be elected leader of the boys. One of Golding's main techniques for presenting his dramatic conflict involves the use of symbols. Lord of the Flies is a highly symbolic novel, and many of its symbols are readily interpreted. In this chapter, for instance, the bespectacled Piggy is used to represent the scientific and intellectual aspects of civilization, as he thinks critically about the conch shell and determines a productive use for it-summoning the other boys to the beach. Other symbols that appear later in the book are more complex and open to multiple interpretations.

Chapter 1 introduces one of the most important symbols in the novel: the conch shell. The conch shell represents law, order, and political legitimacy, as it grants its holder the right to speak and summons the boys to democratic assemblies. Later in the book, this natural object will be sharply contrasted with another-the sinister pig's head known as the Lord of the Flies, which will come to symbolize primordial chaos and terror.