Theme & Author's Purpose

I am on page 139 of Lord of the Flies by William Golding. A theme in this novel is the idea of these boys losing their innocence on the island. When these boys first arrive on the island they are young and accustomed to a much more structured society. As they spend more time in this setting they experience a dark side of human nature. After the boys have murdered Simon, Ralph feels extreme guilt and amazement from what they did. When Piggy tries to rationalize what happened to Simon with their fear of the beast, Ralph says to him, “I wasn’t scared…I was–I don’t know what I was” (139). He sounds ashamed and confused about why he and the others acted in the way they did. Ralph is realizing there is this darkness deep inside of him, which every human possesses, that has been brought out by this environment that they are in. The author’s purpose in writing Lord of the Flies is to make the statement that some people in the world will often give in to these urges to be violent creatures. The author puts these children in this setting to demonstrate how people act by nature.