"The Lord of The Files" by William Golding.

Essay by CrazyBeastieHigh School, 10th gradeA+, August 2003

download word file, 6 pages 4.8

Of Savages and Innocents

In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, it is apparent the author is trying to get across the point that evil is inside of each of us.

In all cultural stereotypes, even today, anyone who may be different from the typical American white man can be labeled as savage. Man's original sin is overlooked and all the negative energy is focused on the "evil" differences of other cultures. For example, in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, the author wrote a fictional account of Crusoe and his attempt to civilize a savage. The savage in the story, was an evil creature who did not know the difference between yes and no, and was intent on finding the graves of two dead men and, "making signs to me that we should dig them up again, and eat them". In the story, Crusoe taught the man morals and clothed him, for which the story made him a hero, when all he really had done was rip a man away from his homeland.

Another example is Rudyard Kipling, who wrote the poem "The White Man's Burden" in response to the increased amount of Philippine people in America. Because the people of the Philippines had different customs, values, and looks, they were thought right away to be savages. Kipling wrote his poem to the United States as if to say "now you have to deal with this load of savages". He wrote about the Philippine people in a negative manner of the savages, calling them "your new-caught, sullen peoples, half devil and half child", perfectly reflecting the definition of definition of savagery at the time.

Golding's Lord of the Flies was a radical objection in the face of prejudice, stating that white men were just as savage of those others that...