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Notes boys under Jack’s rule as motivated by fear of “outsiders”: the beast and those who refuse to
accept Jack’s authority. The destruction of the conch shell at the scene of Piggy’s murder
signifies the complete eradication of civilization on the island, while Ralph’s demolition of
The Lord of the Flies-he intends to use the stick as a spear-signals his own descent into
savagery and violence. By the final scene, savagery has completely displaced civilization as
the prevailing system on the island.

27.1.2 Individualism vs. Community

One of the key concerns of Lord of the Flies is the role of the individual in society. Many of
the problems on the island—the extinguishing of the signal fire, the lack of shelters, the mass
abandonment of Ralph’s camp, and the murder of Piggy-stem from the boys’ implicit commitment
to a principle of self-interest over the principle of community. That is, the boys would rather
fulfill their individual desires than cooperate as a coherent society, which would require that
each one act for the good of the group. Accordingly, the principles of individualism and
community are symbolized by Jack and Ralph, respectively. Jack wants to “have fun” on the
island and satisfy his bloodlust, while Ralph wants to secure the group’s rescue, a goal they
can achieve only by cooperating. Yet, while Ralph’s vision is the most reasonable, it requires
work and sacrifice on the part of the other boys, so they quickly shirk their societal duties in
favor of fulfilling their individual desires. The shelters do not get built because the boys
would rather play; the signal fire is extinguished when Jack’s hunters fail to tend to it on
schedule.
The boys’ self-interestedness culminates, of course, when they decide to join Jack’s tribe, a
society without communal values whose appeal is that Jack will offer them total freedom. The
popularity of his tribe reflects the enormous appeal of a society based on individual freedom
and self-interest, but as the reader soon learns, the freedom Jack offers his tribe is illusory.
Jack implements punitive and irrational rules and restricts his boys’ behavior far more than
Ralph did. Golding thus suggests not only that some level of communal system is superior to
one based on pure self-interest, but also that pure individual freedom is an impossible value
to sustain within a group dynamic, which will always tend towards societal organization. The
difficult question, of course, is what individuals are willing to give up to gain the benefits of
being in the group.

27.1.3 The Nature of Evil
Is evil innate within the human spirit, or is it an influence from an external source? What role
do societal rules and institutions play in the existence of human evil? Does the capacity for
evil vary from person to person, or does it depend on the circumstances each individual faces?
These questions are at the heart of Lord of the Flies which, through detailed depictions of the
boys’ different responses to their situation, presents a complex articulation of humanity’s
potential for evil.
It is important to note that Golding’s novel rejects supernatural or religious accounts of the
origin of human evil. While the boys fear the “beast” as an embodiment of evil similar to the
Christian concept of Satan, the novel emphasizes that this interpretation is not only mistaken
but also, ironically, the motivation for the boys’ increasingly cruel and violent behavior. It is
their irrational fear of the beast that informs the boys’ paranoia and leads to the fatal schism
between Jack and Ralph and their respective followers, and this is what prevents them from
recognizing and addressing their responsibility for their own impulses. Rather, as The Lord
of the Flies communicates to Simon in the forest glade, the “beast” is an internal force, present
in every individual, and is thus incapable of being truly defeated. That the most ethical

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