Ananth Chillarige

Period 4

6 October, 2015


Despite having small differences in opinion, Golding’s views on human nature ultimately agree with Hobbes philosophy, in that Golding’s portrayal of how much the boys change shows that a strong governing force is essential to suppress a human’s selfish and evil nature.

     Thomas Hobbes’ pessimistic view on human nature led him to believe that the best way to govern is through a supreme leader. One of Hobbes’ most popular writings “Leviathan”, depicted his conjecture that without a strong government, people will turn to selfishness, fear and the human race would crash and burn, or as he put it “the condition of man… is a condition of war of everyone against everyone”. Hobbes thought that the natural state of a human being was pure evil and savage, and without a strong leader, everyone would turn against each other and fight only for themselves resulting in a “everyone against everyone” war till the demise of civilization. Hobbes also believed a strong leader was essential for the well being of a society when he said “it is not wisdom but authority that makes a law”, which manifests the idea that no matter how logical and innovative a society is, it will not be able to thrive or much less survive without a strong authoritative figure in place. In addition to having a strong leader, Hobbes believed that  a social contract was necessary to have a thriving civilization, where people have to submit themselves to the government in order for protection from the government. Hobbes’ logic behind this was basically that the government can have all the power, but if people are not willing to cooperate, then there would be a war between the people and the government. So, Hobbes gave the people an incentive by promising the people a protection of their rights, if the people gave up some powers to the government.

    Hobbes’ philosophy had a large influence on Golding when he was writing his novel. In the Lleviathan, Hobbes wrote a passage that summarizes Golding’s whole story in a nutshell. He said, “No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. When the boys were stranded on the island and left in “the darkness of the forest proper and the open space of the scar”, and thrown away from the society they previously belonged to, the boys started living a more primal or primitive lifestyle, where they had to build their own shelters and had to be hunter-gatherers in order to attain food, which ended up transforming them from being young civilized british boys to being animalistic “Britishbrutish” boys. They let the beast invoke “continual fear” in them and resorted to “violent” actions by tearing up the island and killing all the pigs in sight, convincing themselves that they are doing it for “meat”. When Simon was hallucinating a conversation with the Llord of the Fflies, it told him that the beast, which existed in all the boys on the island, is what brought the darkness and destruction to the island when it said that it was “the beast” and it is “the reason” for “why things are what they are”. The Llord of the Fflies was explaining how the “the beast”, was simply a symbol of fear and that  everyone was foolish and thought  it was a physical creature to “hunt and kill”, and  as a result turned to savagery to try and conquer their fear, which in turn brought destruction and death to the island. That scene in the novel illustrates what Hobbes meant when he was talking about a “violent death”.

    Although Hobbes and Golding’s sharehave multiple views about human nature in common, a few key differences do exist. Hobbes believed that humans were purely evil at heart, and no good resided within them, but Golding hinted that all people had the potential to be good through the noble characterization of Simon, Golding hinted that all people had the potential to be good, even if they were isolated by society. Throughout the story, Simon never got into any conflict with anyone, and was portrayed as the neutral character. For example, Wwhen Jack, the main character who carries savage traits refuses to give Piggy food, Simon steps up and gave Piggy food, since he genuinely cares about people. One might say that Simon only gave Piggy food because he had a selfish desire to keep Piggy around since Piggy’s intelligence could come in handy later on, but Simon never really relied on Piggy’s intelligence, so he must have done it from kindness. In addition to giving Piggy food, Simon was also the only character that wasn’t not to beget influenced by the beast. Even though all the characters let the fear get to them and expressed savage behavior in one way or another, Simon realizes that the beast was “only [them]”, and was able to suppress it and preserve his enlightened and spiritual nature. Because Simon did end up dying in the story, so it is reasonable to assume that Golding believed human nature is more affected by evil rather than good and therefore the potential for good isnonexistent inexistent, but the reason that Golding chose to kill him off was not to prove a point about good or bad, but it was to emphasize the loss of nature and the destruction that happened on the island.









































“For such is the nature of man, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; Yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves: For they see their own wit at hand, and other mens at a distance.”