Tendency of Evil in Lord of the Flies

William Golding’s quote, “Man produces evil as a bee produces honey”, is what perfectly describes his book, Lord of the Flies. The message that Golding tries to convey in Lord of the Flies is that humans have a natural tendency to evil, and he mostly portrays that through two characters: the Lord of the Flies and Jack.

Golding portrays his opinion of how humans are naturally evil through the one and only scene where the Lord of the Flies is revealed, appearing as a pig’s head on a stake and talking to Simon: “Fancy thinking the Beast was something you can hunt and kill… You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you?...I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are? (Golding, p. 143)” In this scene, Golding is trying to show the reader that the Beast, the monster that everyone had been afraid of, is not real; it is simply the humans themselves that are the evil monsters. 

Another element William Golding uses to illustrate his viewpoint on humans is the character of Jack. Although he and Ralph are friends at the start, he slowly gets obsessed over hunting for food– then, the beast of the island. This obsession with hunting gets him distracted from the main goal, so when he “[lets] the fire go out (p. 69)”, he doesn’t seem to care all that much: “Jack checked, vaguely irritated by this irrelevance but too happy to let it worry him… ‘I cut the pig’s throat,’ (p. 69)” The fire was a signal that could’ve helped the group get rescued, but because of Jack’s disregard, everyone misses their opportunity, but all he cares about is the pig he killed. As the story progresses, Jack becomes more violent and has no intention of stopping: “‘Which is better– to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill? (p. 180)” At this point, it seems like Jack doesn’t remember why they were on this island in the first place, and what the more important goal was: getting rescued. Through Jack, Golding seems to be conveying that humans, even children, are more prone to being evil than focusing on something more significant.

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding tries to convey that no matter what, the nature of humans is to produce evil; however, the author takes his belief to an incredulous extreme, which is a wrong exhibition of how humans really act. In a realistic situation, young kids would not be willing to kill each other and be as violent as some of the characters in the book, similar to Ralph. If the idea that “man produces evil as a bee produces honey” was correct and people acted as the characters did in the book, then there would be no more humans left on this earth.