Sacrifice In Lord Of The Flies

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The laws of the universe maintain that something must be sacrificed in order to gain. Although, scientifically, this pertains to the conservation of energy, sacrifices must also be made to maintain order in a civilization. Members of a civilization must sacrifice fulfilling their immediate desires in order to do what is necessary for their civilization’s survival. For experienced, matured adults, this is common sense: do what is right before what feels right. Children and adolescents do not grasp this concept due to their age and inexperience. In William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, a group of young boys stranded on an island decide to do what feels right before what is right. The consequences are horrific. Unfortunately, due to the human …show more content…

The boys on the island needed to build shelters, watch fires, be rescued; but, they only want to eat, to hunt, to kill. The accuracy of this picture is proven in the study of the human species, specifically in the tendency to kill one another; “Researchers compiled data on lethal violence within 1,024 species of mammals… The analysis shows that deaths caused by other members of the same species is responsible for 0.3% of all deaths on average for all mammals, but the rate of lethal violence among Homo sapiens is 7 times higher” (Fields). Although a successful human civilization should not kill itself and deplete its own population, human beings have the highest tendency to kill each other. Such civilizations lose control and fall into poverty and sorrow. Today we have similar, larger examples of Ralph-like and Jack-like regions. Regions such as Canada have rates of homicides at about 1.7 per 100,000 population (Intentional Homicides (per 100,000 people)). In corrupted Jack-like nations, such as Venezuela, homicide rates exceed 57 per 100,000 people (Intentional Homicides (per 100,000 people)). Even on large scales, individuals’ ability to do what they should over what they want dictates the success of a civilization just as much as the desire-led ways of the Jack tribe led to the failure of their small

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