Lord of the Flies “Is man inherently evil?”

Is man inherently evil? Many people have different answers to this question some do not believe that there is such a thing as good or evil. What is good and evil? Is evil a part of every human being from the moment he is on this planet? I think that man himself chooses in which direction to go to and the environment influences his or her decisions. Many think that you are not inherently evil or good it is you and the environment that makes you evil or good. William Golding in his book is trying to prove and say through his book that people are evil by nature. If a person does not see, what he has done is wrong or evil than you cannot consider this evil or wrongdoing. Evil is when a person knows that what he is doing is wrong but he wants and does it anyway.

In Golding’s book, this supports the idea that man is inherently evil “she was black and pink: and the great bladder of her belly was fringed with a row of piglets. They kill a mother saw for a feast to recruit new members into the tribe” (William Golding page 134). The boys killed the mother sow to recruit boys when they could have just eaten berries or at least a pig without babies. In the book lord of the flies William Golding showed how children no older than 12 years old and no younger than 6 years old acted when left alone for to long on an island. At first, the boys tried to have rules and regulations for all the boys to follow, but after a while, it became chaos on the Island. The boys started to kill each other and did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted.

You cannot say that man is inherently evil because when a human being is just born all it could do is cry, and excrete the wastes in its body. The human cannot do anything when it is just born a human learns everything except for instinctive actions which it cannot learn. The human is not born evil if you look at it that way. But when the baby gets older than three the baby might start wanting to do evil actions; the baby may have an attraction to a parent of the opposite sex and might want to kill the other parent of jealousy this is proving that man is inherently evil. Many philosophers say that man when all grown up becomes evil good or both. Man has evil in it but it is only because of the parents and the environment.

Golding tried to prove that man is inherently evil by showing what the boys on the island in his book did to Simon and how they killed, the sow. However, what he did not know is that it did not prove that they were evil. Because when Simon came out of the bushes they were scared and it is your instinct when you are in the middle of darkness, you have a weapon in your hands, and you are afraid that the being that crawled out of the bushes is a beast that you kill this being. They also killed the sow but they did not know better because they thought it was right and they wanted meat and they did not know that this was wrong so I concluded that it was not out of evil that they killed her. “Piggy could not see anything helpless while the big red boulder bounded at him the whole tribe shrieked. The rock hit piggy with a heavy blow from knee to chin and piggy flew.” (180). this says that man is inherently evil because piggy helpless was standing there and Roger threw a big boulder at him and smashed piggy and the conch.

In Frankenstein, the man who put the Frankenstein together made him do bad things this supports the idea that man is inherently evil. A human created Frankenstein to terrorize other people. This is a piece of information that proves that man is evil but the man that created the beast was already all grown up so it wouldn’t prove that man is inherently evil.

“The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.” -Albert Einstein. This quote means that once a person becomes evil it is hard to make them good and see what they are doing is wrong and evil. “An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.” -Buddha. This quote means that an evil friend can hurt you more than a wild beast because he will hurt you emotionally and your mind, which is not curable where as the beast will only hurt your body, which will heal over time. “Nothing is evil which is according to nature.” -Marcus Aurelius. This quote means that whatever nature does is not evil because whatever nature does, come with a cause and it is what has to happen. Since nature creates human beings, it means that what they do is not evil. For this cause, I say that man is not inherently evil.

There are different definitions for good or evil because I might think that good means one thing but you would say it is another so there is no way we can define good or evil. In definition of most of the public, evil means whatever the public thinks is wrongdoing. The definition of good is bringing happiness to your self and to others. In the publics eyes, Hitler was pure evil he hated every one but himself but the cause of this hatred is probably because he got from the army when he fought in world war 1 or his mother and father did not care for him. My opinion is that evil is not inherited.

“If people are basically good, you don’t need a government; if people are basically evil–you don’t dare have one.” Cenedril Gildinaur and Meril Enaear. This means that if people are good no one will need a government because they know what is right and they only do what is right. If people were, evil than the world would be in war at all times and there will be no reason to set up a government. There will not even be any time to start a government because every one will be fighting each other. (In my opinion if man was evil than there would be no life on Earth. The reason for this is that people would not care about any animals and just kill them whenever they want to and if specie is extinct when it was not supposed to die out there will be a misbalance.)

This proves that humans are not inherently evil or good because we have a government. If people were all good, why would they need a god because they would know what to do by them and would not need a god? If people were evil, they will destroy the world by now. Humans do what every an animal does except that, a human is much smarter than any animal on Earth. Would you say that an animal is inherently evil? Humans try to get food and water just like the animals humans excrete and sleep just like animals and they fight for territory just like animals.

In conclusion, I say that Humans are not inherently evil or good. That does not mean that there are not good or evil people in this world. People learn how to do everything from their parents and this includes how to act. A baby human is not evil from the day he is born because the baby does not know anything but how to excrete, sleep, and cry. It is from the influence of the environment that the baby learns everything. However, a person is jealous and he does do everything in his favor that is why we have rules and regulations. I conclude that man is not inherently evil or good.

References:

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies New York: New York by the Berkley publishing group, 1954.

http://www.cute-quote.com/evil/quotes-of-evil-001.htm