Review of Master of the Flies (William Golding) and Its Connection to the Juvenile Justice System, Essay Example

A group of British schoolboys were stranded on an island during a war. Ralph was chosen as their leader, and Jack selected as the one in charge of finding food. The boys, initially, enjoyed their life without grownups, yet failed in their responsibilities, which included maintaining the fire that was meant to serve as signal and building huts for shelter. More significantly, Jack had become increasingly absorbed in hunting.  When a fight broke out since the fire had to been maintained and a ship had passed the island unalerted to the group’s presence, it became apparent that the youngest members of the group (‘littluns’) were having nightmare of monsters attacking them.

Shortly after, a parachutist lands dead on the island, and a pair of twins failing in their task of monitoring the fire – erroneously report that a beast has attacked them.

Jack and Ralph accept their report, but Jack, increasingly at odds with Ralph, slips away to continue his hunting, whilst Ralph attempts to construct a new fire as signal. Unfortunately, most of the boys slip away to join Jack.  Jack declares himself the leader of this group of hunters, decapitates a sow that he pronounces is sacrifice for the beast.

Simon, another boy from the island, recognizes the parachutist to be no beast but rather a dead man. When he returns to report his discovery, however, the boys – in the middle of a chaotic revelry – fall upon him and kill him with their bare hands and teeth. In an ensuing fight between Ralph and Jack, Piggy is later killed whilst Ralph is ferociously hunted. The end of the story shows Ralph aware that the boys will find him and kill him at any moment – under Jack’s instruction they have smoked the forest – looking up and finding a British naval officer standing over him. Ralph and the boys weep at the knowledge of the horrors they have perpetrated on the island whilst the officer, amazed at this spectacle of bloodthirsty savage children, turns his back enabling them to weep.

Analysis of the Narrative

This book is astute in countless observations. When children (or adults) are left to run amok, anarchy breaks out. Laws can be dreary; the children had a chance to build and maintain a fire as signal. Yet they allowed their vigilance to lapse, and enjoyed playing the life of ‘children’ free of adult discipline. As a result, destructiveness followed. Potential rescuers were not alerted to their presence; there were no policemen therefore fights ensued which soon developed into murder. And what a murder! Golding seems to tell us that when humans are not controlled they – even boys as young as six or seven – can develop into beasts. Note that Simon realizes that the beast does not exist externally but rather internally within boys; and it is this that he wants to tell them. The Island needs laws, Golding seems to imply, in order to curb that innocuous beast within us. For the beast needs just a bit of freedom – Jack was no hunter at the beginning; his love for hunting was fed; and once fed it grew and grew and then, via influence, effected the others until murder (even killing with his bare hands and biting Simon’s flesh with their teeth) was comfortable to them.

Master of the Flies and the Juvenile Justice System

Indeed the entire book is a microcosm of the Juvenile Justice System. Ralph represents order, leadership, and civilization. Piggy – with his glasses – represents the intellectual aspects of civilization (note that Jack’s hunter later steal the glasses); Jack represents savagery and lust for power. The entire island represents a political state with the ‘littleuns’ representing, perhaps, the common people, while the older boys are the ruling classes and the political leaders. But on this island – or in our System – there are increasing instances of worrisome and destructive behavior by juveniles – random killing in schools, or shootouts amongst each other with a similar savagery and repugnance of order as was evidenced by Jack. And more worrisome, too, is the effect that these deeds have on  ‘followers’.  Altogether, there seems to be a climaxing trend of youth alienation from social values and institutions.

The dominant message of the book seems to be that in order to prevent and control anti-social tendencies, one needs a strict system of law and policing in place. Yet, civilizations such as America do have that, and juvenile alienation seem to continue unabated.

One strategy might be – which indeed the Juvenile System does do – is to prevent children who have tendencies to anti-social acts from, when being on parole, returning to that environment. Care is – or should be taken, to ensure that they are placed in a healthier environment than the one they formerly experienced in order that they not revert to their original destructive mannerisms. Jack’s habit grew on him.  His earlier hunting forays sharpened a relish for more, until hunting became his character.  Individuals with addictive tendencies are encouraged and restrained to keep away from their addictions so that a morass of destruction not ensue. Similarly, to prevent individuals like Jack from influencing others, the Juvenile System goes to great care to prevent sociaopathic individuals, such as Jack, from having familiar contact with other inmates.

An interesting solution practiced widely in the States and in Australia, has been the practice of restitution where juvenile delinquents make amends to the injured person for the harm caused him. The objective of the method is to evoke a response similar to that which the boys, at the end of Golding’s narrative, experienced when they looked around the island and saw the carnage they had committed. They cried. It is questionable whether the sociopathic nature of an individual such as Jack would experience such remorse, but restitution is a mechanism that seems to have some results. Offenders are made more aware of and responsible for their actions, and there seems to be substantial evidence that recidivism is seduced when restitution is in place. In America, for instance, a study of over 6,000 juvenile probation cases found that juveniles agreeing to pay restitution, as well as those who had paid, returned to court significantly less often than juveniles who did not pay restitution. On the other hand, problems with restitution include the fact that it is perceived as a form of leniency, and its effect on socioptahtic tendencies is questionable (Felds, 2003).

Juvenile Killers

Jack was a prime example of a sociopathic character. All serial killers (which Jack seemed by definition to be) are by definition anti-social personalities which means that they evidence a pattern of irresponsible or harmful behavior, a lack of conscience, ignore social rules and laws, are impulsive, and fail to learn from punishment

To analyze a person like Jack: First and foremost come the arguable biological reasons. It is said that serial killers are different than ‘ordinary’ people, that they lack the neurological capacity of feeling and are literally unable to stop themselves from murder. It is also suggested that right frontotemporal lesions impair impulse control or that their brains are, in other ways, effected (Wittling & Schweiger, 1993). It is significant indeed that 37 percent of serial killers had abusive childhoods with which included being assaulted on the brain and in other ways horrendously maltreated. Persons who experienced severe adversity as young children have persistent neurobiological abnormalities and increased risk of mood and anxiety disorders that persist into adulthood (Nemeroff, 2004).

Biological reasons aside, according to ‘Evil: Inside human violence and cruelty’ (Baumeister, 1997) serial killers are spurred on by a mix of reasons, one of which includes that clearly seen in Jack, the joy of hurting. Otherwise known as sadism. It is nearly always a small minority of perpetrators (about 5 percent) who derive such pleasure, and it is possible that sadistic enjoyment is something that is gradually discovered over a period of time involving multiple episodes of dominating or hurting others. In this way, it is a form of addiction in the sense that the person comes to crave that pleasure and to want ever-stronger doses of it. Several men, Baumeinster (1997) observed, said that killing became a habit, or a “vice”. Killing can also be fun in that it demeans the other, puts him in a ridiculous, denigrating, pitiful position, and, by so doing, inculcates the killer (usually with personal grievances and from disenchanted background) with a sensation of power.

In a similar way, it is popularly but erroneously (Baumeinster, 1997) thought that killers kill due to low self-esteem. Baumeinster on the contrary argues that the reverse seems to be the case. “When self-esteem raises, violence rises too”  (p.140).   Inflated self-esteem is, therefore, one instigator of murder.  Another is unstable egotism or insecure grandiosity where these people think well of themselves most of the time, but experience frequent or large fluctuations in their self-esteem.  Here is the threat of losing self-esteem that makes the difference and that can cause some to kill.  This was indeed the case with Jack. His lust for power, his drive towards grandiosity in promoting himself as leader and in seeking, time and again, to supplant Ralph show him to have all the classic characteristics of the addicted killer.

It is in order to prevent the perpetration of such deeds that the Juvenile System seeks to curb and punish juvenile crime. In that way, it hopes, a spectacle such as that that occurred in ‘Lord of the Flies’ would be prevented.

Source

Baumeister, R. Evil: Inside human violence and cruelty. New York: W.H. Freedman & Co, 1997.

Fields, B. “Restitution and restorative justice in juvenile justice and school discipline.” Youth Studies Australia. Web. 1Dec. 2003.

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies, USA: Odyssey Publications, 1997.

Gottfredson, M.R. & Hirschi, T. A general theory of crime Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 1990.

Hickey, E. Serial Murderers and Their Victims. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2002.

Mesulam, M.M. “From sensation to cognition”. Brain, 121, 1013–1052. (1998).

Wittling, W., & Schweiger, E.  “Neuroendocrine brain asymmetry and physical complaints”. Neuropsychologia, 31, 591–608. (1993).