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Examples Of Cruelty In Lord Of The Flies

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Examples Of Cruelty In Lord Of The Flies
Lord of the Flies: Cruelty Remains Within

Although the British claim to be the very best at everything, this was definitely not the case for the group of British boys stranded on an unknown island. In the intriguing classic novel by William Golding, Lord of the Flies, a small plane crashes, leaving the boys without adult supervision to make life altering decisions for themselves. Instincts are important to ensure survival and to decide which choices are right or wrong, so when the boys’ plane crashed onto the island, their instincts were changed to ensure their own individual survival rather than the group’s. The situations they were forced to act upon surfaced new or hidden evil characteristics among themselves that changed their sense of right and wrong, exemplifying that dark times can bring out the cruelty in people.

When people are put into stressful and chaotic situations, the majority will just think about themselves and their own well-being by developing new or familiar evil characteristics that have rarely or never come out
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No matter how kind or great a person may seem from the outside, there is always a small part of vicious behavior ready to come out deep within one’s soul. When Ralph went hunting for the first time with Jack and the majority of the boys, he stabbed a pig. After the boys’ hunting trip, Ralph reenacted how he stabbed the pig with Robert and the situation escalated from just the boys joking with one another and acting like Robert was actually a pig to the boys all began chanting, “Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in,” (Golding 114). Ralph was even handed a spear, and he almost used it on poor Robert. Ralph developed a new hunger, but this hunger was to kill: “The desire to squeeze and hurt was over mastering,” (Golding 115). Ralph’s hunting days were so short lived because he was able to realize how much it altered his personality so negatively in such a short amount of

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