Savagery in Lord of the Flies Essay Sample

When people think of savagery they most commonly think of antisocial groups that partake in atrocious acts such as cannibalism or needlessly harming others. A frightening example of unnecessary barbarity is William Golding’s Lord of the Flies where a gaggle of young boys are stranded on an uncharted island and left to their own devices. There are two groups created: a cadre of hunters and the other boys. Jack, the leader of the hunters, quickly falls to the temptation of hurting other living creatures without reason to do so. The rest of his hunters quickly follow suit. Their group, now referred to as savages, begin to lash out at the others on the island. It has been discussed since the release of the novel that the plummet into social unacceptability is the result of the underlying psychological aspects of the evolving male psyche. 

A significant factor to the moral failure of the savages is how the mind of adolescent males function. The nature of the growing brain is that kids and teenagers are more likely to give in to their biological impulses and desires. As the human brain progresses in its development, “[the reward section of the brain] seems “to be shouting louder” between the ages of 13 and 17 than at any other time during human development” (Mascarelli). When the boys land on the island, they come together for a meeting. However, in this particular gathering, they focus less on survival tactics and more on what feels gratifying in the moment. This theme continues when the groups begin to separate after they have lost interest in the rules and structures that they had previously created. These savage boys no longer foster the idea of peaceful resolution or democratic collaboration and instead come together in a negative fashion; forming a group of riotous children focused entirely on their spur of the moment impulses. This lack of impulse control in pubescent boys has commonly been attributed to the ventral striatum, the section of the brain associated with risk/reward anticipation, and the prefrontal cortex, the sector of the brain focused on impulse control and logical thinking. Psychologists have given credit to the theory that “the adolescent brain is locked in a tug-of-war between the logical pull of the prefrontal cortex and the impulsive pull of the ventral striatum” (Mascarelli). This battle between unbridled impulsiveness and judicial forethought, in the minds of the savages, had been won by impulsivity. This resulted in a thorough disregard for logic and moral correctness which ultimately led them down the path of barbarity. 

The tug of war between impulse and morality was demonstrated decades after the book's release in the Stanford Prison Experiment. This social experiment, conducted at Stanford University in 1971, had twenty-four participants: twelve as prison guards and twelve as prisoners. Soon after the experiment began, the assigned guards began to “[ritually humiliate] the prisoners, with forced exercise and physical punishments becoming more and more common” (Shuttleworth). Having no authority figure to dissuade them from acts of cruelty corrupted the guards and, without proper guidance toward magnanimous behavior led them to becoming needlessly hostile and aggressive towards the prisoners. This real life display of unwarranted savagery mimics, to a lesser extent, the actions of the savages in the book. One night, a younger boy left the group to have a moment of peace. Upon his return, the rest of the boys saw a dark figure headed in their direction and instead of using logical thought, they immediately lashed out with murderous intent, screaming “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” (Golding, Lord 214). After the boys’ impulsive rage had subsided, they realized that the assumed “beast” had been a young and defenseless group member. Many of the boys did not see an issue with the slaughter as they believed that “he was batty. He asked for it” (Golding, Lord 220). The boys felt the need to justify their actions and pass the blame away from themselves and back onto the boy that they killed. Their impulsive hatred directly caused the butchering of a young group member much in the same vein as the prison guards impetuous animosity towards the prisoners in the experiment.