Evil Surrounds Us
Evil causes harm to everyone surrounding us, including ourselves. Jealousy lies and crimes are all led by evil domination of the human spirit. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the plot consists of young boys stranded on an island. The boys deal with temptations, such as; hunger, thirst, hunting and killing. The group is quickly split in two when Jack decides he wants his own tribe (the Savages). The boys loose all their civilized knowledge. They follow only their personal needs and their common sense. This novel resembles the classical play by Shakespeare, Macbeth. Macbeth visits three witches who tell him his future; becoming king of Scotland. He puts his faith in the words and the prophecies of the witches, after their first prophecy comes true. With the help of his wife, Lady Macbeth, he plots many murders to assure that the prophecies will come true and to keep everything secret. Both stories deal with the progression of evil. Both children and adults are drawn to the evil side. They will do anything to get what they want, even if it means becoming murderers. Evil can escalade in transforming humans into savages.
Every human being is drawn to the evil side, young or old. Evil is a common theme expressed in both Lord of the Flies and Macbeth. A person can be influenced due to his exposure to a type of environment. In the first novel by William Golding, Ralph is driven to stay in control of himself. The antagonist, Jack, is opposed to Ralph’s self control. From the beginning, Jack has a feeling of disobedience among the group. He believes they should all live like animals; always acting upon their instinct. Unfortunately, the majority of the boys agree with him. He uses manipulation to speculate that they will have fun and be safe from an imaginary beast. ”Who’ll join my tribe and have fun?”. ”I gave you food”, said Jack, ”and my hunters will protect you from the beast, who will join my tribe?” (166) Jack is able to convince the others to join his tribe. Children are so innocent that they can be considered naive. By joining the tribe, they are entering the evil side. In Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth is revealed as a very consuming character. His wife, Lady Macbeth draws him to believing that he must become King. He murders King Duncan, thus entering himself in a world of evil.
During the play, Macbeth feels the need for an assistant. He tries to convince his friend Banquo, ”Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve/ We would spend it in some words upon that business/ If you would grant the time.”(Macbeth, 2.1.) Contrary to Jack, Macbeth was not able to convince Banquo to help him. Banquo agrees to serve him only if: ”So I lose none/ In seeking to augment it, but still keep/ My bosom franchised and allegiance clear/ I shall be counseled.” Pursuing this further, both children and adults have differences and similarities. Children are young and they have not been alive long enough to clearly know the difference between good and evil. Adults, on the other hand, can relate their judgment to their past experiences. They are still drawn to the evil side this can progress to forgetting what is their true identity, in result to achieve their goal.
Humans with evil ambitions can forget their own common sense. Murdering is a sin, as written in the Bible. The evil amongst us causes humans to do heinous acts. For example, Jack is a hunter and he believes the boys needs meat to survive. His hunts quickly involve into murders. The pigs they hunt are killed more gruesomely. Consequently, they end up killing some of the boys on the island, not realizing their own evil ambitions. In one incident, Jack is proven to have lost all his common sense. ”The beast struggled forward, broke the ring and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the sand by the water. At once the crowd surged after it, cowered down the rock, leapt on the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore.
There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.” (168) Jack simply replies that the beast had taken over Simon’s body. He craves to be leader and to have all the boys following him. He stops at nothing to kill anyone that gets in his way: Simon and Piggy. Driven by his ambitions, Macbeth uses the same mentality as Jack. His first murder’s objective was to become King of Scotland. Following King Duncan’s murder, he must continue killing to deceive all his doubtful citizens. In one of his famous monologue he expresses: ”I am in blood/ Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more/ Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” (Macbeth, 3.4.) This monologue proves Macbeth has gone to far the reach his ambitions. He has gotten so used to murdering, that he cannot stop. In Lord of the Flies, the boys killed to prove their strength and their control. In Macbeth, he kills to gain royalty. Evil consumes humans and it can change our identity.
Evil can progress by creating animalism in humans. Every person is born with a unique personality. The majority of the boys in Lord of the Flies would rather act upon the need to prove themselves better and stronger than the rest of the boys on Ralph’s side. Depending on a person’s being, he or she is more susceptible to react in a certain way to different kinds of environments. For instance, in comparison with Ralph and Jack, Ralph reacts in a very grownup way to their situation. On the other hand, Jack’s animal side quickly takes over. He loses all his common sense, only reacting to his animal side. With a familiar rhythm; ”Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” (205), this song was sung as a hymn to their tribe. Contrary to Jack, Macbeth’s murders were done more humanly, than savagely. Furthermore, Macbeth feels the need to hide his heinous crimes, he states: ”Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t.” (Macbeth, 1. 5.) By murdering, Macbeth and Jack proved their capability to act as animals. Depending on a person’s personality, many humans have the need to set his animal side free.
The progression of evil can impact a human being’s life in many ways. Both children and adults are attracted to the evil side. Humans feel the need to continue evil deeds to achieve their goals. This can cause an uncontrollable savageness in a person’s mind and behavior. The mind has been studied throughout history. It is an extremely complex organ and it is impossible to explain it completely. Most of the existing explanations are based on theories. One theory heard of is a human’s ”criminal mind”, or an expression also used an ”evil mind”. Do only criminals have an ”evil mind” or do all human beings have the hidden capacity to kill?
