The Individual

An overview of Human Nature

 • Born into a family ….. And he has no say in
the selection of his family
• Absolute no say in the selection of his
name....

Individual… • Absolute no say in the selection of his

religion....

.
• But his ‘moral standards’ are shaped by his
family, the religion he is made to follow &
his peers....
 • Human beings are thought to be the most
developed organism on the face of the
Earth. We are told time and time again that
we are animals able to reason.

Human • But slowly, you encounter moments in life in

which you doubt this; sometimes a human
being can be so illogical or evil, that the

Nature
reasoning ability it is supposed to possess
cannot be found.
• After some time, you come to the
conclusion that people are [were] never
quite the way you thought they were.
 • A truly amazing glimpse into
human nature.
• In the end, human beings are
Why ‘Lord thirsty for power, no matter the
rules that were made for order.
of the Flies’? • And the most amazing thing is,
children are not immune to
evil.
WILLIAM GOLDING
• William Golding was born on September 19,
1911, in Cornwall, England.
• In 1935 he started teaching English and
philosophy in Salisbury.
• He joined the Royal Navy in 1940.
• In 1954 he published his first novel, Lord of
the Flies.
• In 1983, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature.
• He died in 1993.
 Ralph = Civilization
The Piggy = Reason

Characters Jack = Savagery

Simon = Goodness
 The Fire = Hope (of rescue)/destruction
The Conch = Order and rules
The Symbols The Glasses = Reason
The Beast = Savagery and evil inside humans
Lord of the Flies = The Devil/Satan
• Lord of the Flies is an allegory because, at a higher
level, beyond the surface meaning of the story, the
boys can be seen as humanity as a whole, the island
as the world, the fighting between the two groups as
war between countries, etc.

• (An allegory is a work of literature in which events

Allegory*
and characters represent other characters or events
outside the work. Such work will have two meanings,
a surface meaning and a deeper meaning.)
• Lord of the flies movie(1963) is
the adaptation of William
Golding’s novel
• The story is of a group of school
boys who are stranded on a
deserted tropical island and their
attempt to survive and be
rescued
• The children must decide how to

INTRODUCTIO
structure their society. They
need camps, fire for food and
signal, hunters to find the food
and individuals to look after the
younger children
N
Points of View
• There is more than one theme of Human
nature highlighted in the movie e.g. violence,
mob mentality, etc.
• It shows how lack of rules can lead to total
chaos in society as it leads to behavioral
transformations among the members.
• Rules are formed over the ages and passed
down through the society , these rules hold
back the socially destructive behavior of
humans.
• The functioning of a society is strongly
dependent on the moral integrity of individual
members
 • Jack is shown as a character with innate
savagery.
• But as long as he is part of the society , he is
able to channel his hunting skills and his
savage side is kept in control .

Good vs. • The trouble starts when he revokes Ralph’s

authority and disregards the society and its

Evil
laws.
• The boys then divide camps one led by
Ralph (Democratic Leadership) and the
other by Jack (Authoritarian Leadership)
• Jack’s hunters descend into savagery, while
Ralph tries to hang on to his sense of
Morality while resisting the blood thirst.
• Appropriate leadership
styles at the correct time are
as important as the ethics
and values we hold dear.
• A leader may be ethical and
law abiding but if he is not
able to fulfill the basic needs
of the group, the group can
Leadership
wander towards unethical
ways. Style
• Ralph and Jack try to
create rules for the
community and use the
conch as a sign of power .
• They also follow a
democratic approach to
choosing a leader by
considering a voting
system
 • When the boys arrive on the island ,
they try to form an organized society.
This initial reaction is due to their past
learning's in England.
Innate • However as time goes on, they disregard
their social constraint and forget their
Depravity vs. objective to get rescued ,the boys
degenerate into blood thirsty savages.

Enculturation • In an organization rules and objectives

are required for it to function optimally.
• In absence of social rules and
restrictions, we tend to let go of our
morality.
Scene 1 : Jack and the boys initially hesitate
when trying to kill the pig , on account of
their innocence and lack of skill.
Scene 2 : As time goes on Jack’s behavior
changes and he doesn’t hesitate to take the
pigs life. He has lost his innocence and now
sees himself as a hunter
 • The innocence of the boys slowly fades
away as the boys finally give in to their
primal needs.
• Jack’s first attempt to kill a pig resulted
in a failure.
• His innocence still hindered him from
Innocence taking a life.
• However along the journey, his
innocence was shattered.
• An individual may hesitate to take
another’s life ,but the environment and
needs can force one to change their
behavior.
• A corporate generally start off
as being an ethical entity at the
time of its inception.
• Increasing competition and
pressure to increase profits can
force them to take decisions
which may go against ethics and
values of the society at large.
• Example:- Satyam Computers
Scene 3 : Jack and his team go off on a hunt
while neglecting the fire , however he
doesn’t seem apologetic about his mistake
Scene 4: The boys go into a frantic trance
and mistake Simon for the Beast and kill
him.
• Absence of personal
responsibility, a crowd can
perpetrate acts of extreme
violence
• The tribe as a mob kills
Simon, then later they killed
Piggy. No responsibility was
taken on both occasions. Mob
• They also tried to kill Ralph
as a act of collective
violence but he survived.
Tendency
Scene 5 : Jack as the leader of the tribe
refuses to take responsibility of Simon’s
death and rather blames it on the Beast
 • Jack took his team to hunt while
neglecting his responsibility of
maintaining the fire. The fire went
out when it would have helped them
Management rescued.
• Simon was killed and it was told as
Issues “accident”, Jack should have taken
the responsibility as he was the chief
of the tribe
• Big corporate houses at times
tend to believe that they are
above law and that the top
management cannot be held
accountable for all the actions of
their lower staff.
• This lack of ownership of
consequences and responsibility
turns that corporate into a social
and environmental evil.
Scene 6: The Tribe kills Piggy in an act of
Mob violence
• Large groups tend to
demonstrate mob tendency
where logic and ethics are not
considered valid arguments.
• During mob tendency, the group
can do all sorts of unethical
activities as people tend to think
there is no individual
responsibility for the actions of
the mob.
 "Ethical nature" is not inherent in
mankind.

Learning There is a certain capacity for evil

that resides in man.

It is the moral integrity that must

prevail and keep him in check for
him to be ethical and thus for
society to be maintained.
 QUOTE
"The theme is an attempt to trace the defects
of society back to the defects of human nature.
The moral is that the shape of society must
depend on the ethical nature of the individual
and not on any political system however
apparently logical or respectable. The whole
book is symbolic in nature."
— William Golding
THANK YOU