What basic emotions would we feel once stranded on an island with nothing but other teenagers? We might feel happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, or disgust. Yet, what if we go beyond that to our primal instincts? What such feelings or emotions, as you could call it, would we show or develop? In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, primal instincts such as the need for civilization, human savagery, or even the simple self-preservation influence have all but consumed every thought of a stranded group of boys on an isolated island. Within Lord of the Flies, William Golding not only develops these primal instincts through the theme of the book, but he also emphasizes a primal instinct or human need such as the need for technology or the impulse of human savagery. More specifically, the idea of innate human evil is developed throughout the book, and the ways the teenage boys combat this inner evil-whether it’s through bloodthirst or through the need to keep any semblance of humanity. Here’s a funny story, I read this book a long time ago, and I didn’t understand anything about it. I thought it was just about killing pigs (which we’ll get to later) and all about survival (which I guess it kind’ve is), so I didn’t grasp most of the concepts or ideas that William Golding put within his books. Now, after I had re-read it, I began to slowly understand the themes, characters, and symbols that Golding had put into his book, and the idea of an inner evil we all battle is very real, although perhaps not as extreme as this case.

Characters and symbols are hard to understand fully, as shown by my anecdote above. Lord of the Flies uses many characters and symbols to develop the theme of our instincts, and Golding describes each main character in many subtle, yet important ways. Let’s take the example of the protagonist, Ralph, he represents the human need for civilization, as he starts to organize the group of boys and create a society in which they live in when they first arrive on the island. Ralph further exemplifies this by finding a conch, a symbol for legitimacy and the right to speak during gatherings , and using it to further develop the civilization he so desperately wants. On the same side of the spectrum, Piggy, Ralph's friend, embodies the intellectual and scientific part of civilization. Throughout the book, almost every good idea is thought of by Piggy, yet other boys don’t listen to him because of his looks (he’s fat), and this shows just another problem of society, cleverly put in by Golding. Anyway, Piggy’s glasses are a symbol that represent the power of science and knowledge, as the glasses were used to create fire. On the other hand, Jack, the antagonist, represents human savagery and the need for power. After Jack’s group split off from Ralph’s, Jack controls them by using their own fear against them. Jack uses a sow’s head to control his group and make their fears real. "This head is for the beast. It's a gift” (Golding 137). After Jack killed a pig, he uses its head as a sacrifice to this beast living on the island with the boys. Through this manner, the sow’s head has come to symbolize the control and power Jack had over his group, and the evil that humans have created for themselves over and over again. Through character qualities and symbolization of items, we start to see a theme of inner evil, as each character and their symbol are trying to combat evil in their own way, whether it’s to uphold the rules of society and develop technology or become bloodthirsty and develop a false sense of power.

As mentioned above, primal instincts like human savagery,  the need for civilization, and self-preservation are shown throughout the many types of conflict within the book. Everyone on the island, as a group, must fight against nature to survive on the island with nothing but what they arrived with, and this conflict is categorized as man vs. nature. In the beginning, they struggle to hunt for food, collect water, and they try to build shelters only to have them collapse. However, the conflict shifts when Jack’s group leaves and starts to compete against Ralph’s group. The following conflict takes more of a man vs. man type of conflict, as Jack’s group starts to actively hunt down members of Ralph’s group. This shows the savagery and self-preservation that humans have when stranded on an island and against others we perceive to be enemies. However, this man vs. man conflict actually represents the wild or savage side that Jack’s group has against Ralph’s group which is more civilized and less vicious. The final conflict that was in the book, in my opinion, was man vs. self. This conflict starts almost at the beginning and it never gets resolved, unlike the other conflicts shown. As each group has seen type of beast or nightmare, they gradually become more and more drawn in to their fears and develop irrational judgement. In fact, the Lord of the Flies or the sow’s head (I know right? Mind-boggling) symbolizes one more thing. It symbolizes the inner evil that all humans contain, it represents the fears that everyone generates for themselves. Such was the case of the beast, as the beast was never real in the first place, and the boys never feared something physical. It was all in their heads as they struggled to fight against the fear of the beast which was the Lord of the Flies, which represented the innate evil within them.

Lord of the Flies not only talked about every human’s primal instinct, but it also talked about the innate evil in everyone that we battle daily with. Golding shows this through important character qualities and symbols that contained many ideas that flowed into one thing-self-struggle. Inner evil inasmuch as actual feelings of hate or dislike, but the struggles we face, overall, as human beings. Sure, the case of Lord of the Flies was a bit extreme, as a group of teenage boys were deserted on an island, but it still showed our instincts, our feelings or emotions we had to counteract the fear or evil within us as human beings. I would honestly recommend this book to people who enjoy thinking a lot and taking a lot from books like these, but it’s probably too late because this analysis contained way too many spoilers (sorry but it had to be done). Even so, I would encourage readers to read this book again and delve deeper within this book, as I’m sure you will be able to detect the meaning of everything mentioned above, and it will increase your understanding of this book to a whole different level, just like how I understood it better after reading it again.