Lord of the Flies: A Reflection on the Human Heart.

Nataly Arenas                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

The short novel Lord of the Flies is an outstanding literary work in which William Golding shares his personal analysis of the structure of society and its imperfection. Golding recreates a fictional scene in which several 5-12-year old British boys are scattered on an inhabited island due to a plane crash and have to figure out how to get rescued. Throughout this piece, Golding develops in a consistent way the concept of original sin and how it is rooted to the human heart.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions defines the term of original sin as the state of sin into which everyone is born as a result of the fall of Adam. ¹ The way that Golding expresses his point of view in the book has several phases. The first one is where he states the characters that are involved in the conflict to which we can all relate in our common society. We all know a Piggy, which is the intellectual character that gets easily frustrated when he cannot find an answer to the surrounding circumstances. At the same time, we can also picture in our heads a Ralph, which is the kind of democratically -elected leader that tries to establish laws and order in a community. And finally, we also have an idea of how an authoritative and powerful figure like Jack can manifest himself in the actual world.

Despite all the obvious differences between the characters they share some particular similarities, including the fact that they all come from the same background- they are all British boys, and from this we are supposed to infer that they are highly educated and civilized, but the book itself “reacts to the pervasive belief in the superiority of British culture and to the belief that to be British was in some sense the direct opposite of being a savage." (Olsen 2) Nevertheless, and most importantly, all the boys share another common trait that is native to them, sin. Gradually, we find more faults in the characters that induce us into thinking that even though they are children, the worldwide symbol for innocence, they are unable to ignore their sinful instinct, and as we move more into the story we are more disappointed in their conduct.

Rom 7:15-17 says: “what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.” This is exactly what is happening to the children and what Golding is trying to prove.  For instance, we know that Ralph’s goal was to establish laws and order on the island and that his genuine desire was for the children to follow and obey them. From this we know that Ralph obviously distinguishes what’s right from what’s wrong. But to our frustration, we encounter that Ralph was later willfully present at the feast and watched the dance that led to Simon’s murder. Ralph indirectly participated in this terrible event only by being there, and we read that his conscience would not let him conceive the fact that he had sold his morals for a piece of meat.

The other characters also distinguished between good and evil. For example, Piggy was often telling Ralph to explain in the assemblies to the children “what’s what” (   ). Piggy was the one who said: “ I know there isn’t no beast—not with claws and all that, I mean—but I know there isn’t no fear either… unless we get frightened of people” (   ), which adds to what he said earlier: “perhaps this isn’t a good island”(   ), meaning that he understood the terminology. But despite his recognition of good and evil, he was also present at the abominable dance, and later denies Simon’s murder which can be translated as a denial of sin. And finally comes Jack, who is no different than the other two because he said: “we’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re  not savages” (   ). But at the end there was no question concerning whether he sinned or not. Among his multitude faults were his cruelty, swearing, cursing, murder, idolatry, not only to a beast but to himself and finally the lie to his tribe about a beast roaming through in the island.

In his book, Golding uses countless of other examples (including that of Roger and Henry) of how despite the fact that the children knew the difference between good and evil, had the same education or at the same time different personalities and worldviews, they all had the same miserable outcome: Sin. Golding himself says: “I still think that the root of our sin is there, in the child. As soon as it has any capacity for acting on the world outside, it will be selfish; and, of course, original sin and selfishness--the words could be interchangeable . . . You can only learn unselfishness by liking and loving.” ³ From this information we can state that Golding firmly believed in the concept of original sin and agreed with the Bible concerning this universal and inevitable truth.

In Lord of the Flies, Golding also uses several allusions to the Bible, and the main one in that of Adam and Eve found in Genesis 3. According to the Bible, the first two human beings were innocent, but not ignorant, due to their knowledge of God’s law. Still, they believed themselves ignorant, and changed God’s truth for a lie. The outcome of their bad decisions affected all human race and they themselves had to live in constant fear all their lives.

In Golding’s story, the children did not carry the burden of the adult life yet and therefore were still innocent. However, they were not ignorant, the law of good and evil was already written in their hearts due to the fall: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Rom 3:23. Still, the children also believed themselves ignorant and created an excuse for sinning, which was the necessity to kill the beast (which was also a lie). There is no doubt of the juxtaposition that Golding created,  and which once more proves his understanding of the Biblical concept.

Unfortunately, Golding leaves us without any hope as he limits himself to write in one of the last sentences of the novel that “Ralph wept for the end of innocence {and} the darkness of man’s heart” (   ). At the end, the children were rescued by an officer whose attitude resembled that of Jack at the beginning of the story; it seems that all the evil that we faced throughout the pages will be doomed to repeat itself all over again, since the children are taken to another war. However, the Bible contrasts this tragic ending with a refreshing promise in I john 4:4 which says: “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”

“We are not sinners because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners.” R.C.  Sproul.

Works Cited

1)      “Original sin.” Encyclopedia. Accessed 29 september 2010. Avaliable. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O101-Originalsin.html

2)       Kirstin Olsen, Understanding Lord of the Flies: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000) 2, Questia, Web, 29 Sept. 2010.

3)      William Golding, "William Golding Talks to John Carey," in William Golding: The Man and His Books, ed. John Carey ( London: Faber and Faber, 1986, 175.)

4)      R.C. Sproul from The Holiness of God. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; 2nd edition (July 1, 2000)