Savage and Civilized Effect

The different environments that humans are placed in has a huge role that shapes their life. Some may not even realize or notice the changes and some may ask “What are the changes?” There are usually two alternatives of how the changes will turn out based on how the person act. It is either savage or civilized. Someone who is savage is violent and uncontrollable and someone who is civilized is well mannered and polite. However, this behavior is not permanent. A person can always change from being civilized or savage based on the different environment.

In the beginning of “The Lord of The Flies” by William Golding,  the children were stranded on an island due to an accident where no adults remain. Since there were no adults, the children that were on the island needed to choose a leader and it was either between Ralph and Jack. Ralph got the most votes which means Ralph became chief. Even though he won, he still shared his power with Jack, “Jack’s in charge of the choir. They can be-what do you want them to be” (Pg 23). Ralph was civilized by sharing his power to get Jack on his side. The audience can tell that Ralph is trying to keep everyone together since he is the leader. He even makes rules such as whoever holds the conch can talk. The conch represents hope for the boys to follow orders and to be civilized. Since they are on their own now, they can not depend on their parents as they used to.

This relates to the real world example of “Black lives matter”. Black lives matter is an activist movement that started in 2012 after Trayvon Martin was murdered by a neighborhood watch volunteer. The main point of this movement was to show that black lives matter. One example that happened in many schools is when the students dropped themselves on the floor for 60 seconds to support the movement. This is a civilized movement that does not require killing anyone. Their environment of where these events take place were placed on their own website for others who are interested to catch up on the events that are going on or about to go on. Based on their official website http://blacklivesmatter.com/, there was a quote that says, “This is not a moment but a movement”. This shows how they are approaching this in a civilized way. They are not ignoring it and killing every police or plotting revenge. In this case, it shows how they are trying to be civilized based on what had happen.  Although, there are probably thousands or millions of people pissed about the unfair case in which was the death of Trayvon Martin.

The Trayvon Martin case was a case about a 17 year old African American boy who was shot to death by George Zimmerman or the neighborhood watch volunteer which has been stated earlier. “I shot Martin in Self defense” was what Zimmerman said during the trial according to the news, CNN. The fact that he got away with this proves how savage he is because either way, he did kill him. This does not justify his death. Trayvon Martin was shot because of being mistaken for having a gun when he actually have a Arizona bottle. This could have been a fear of Trayvon Martin possessing a gun since it was an environment that Zimmerman was not very familiar with. The environment that Trayvon Martin was in was his neighborhood which caused his death since he looked suspicious. Zimmerman was afraid. This caused him to not make the right choice because Trayvon Martin was still killed by getting shot. He could have admitted that he was afraid but he did not and he still got away with it, this shows savagery. Fear is something that everyone has at least once in their life and it can be a uneasy feeling that affects a lot of people.

In the book of “The Lord of The Flies, there was a moment towards the end where the tribe killed Simon. Ralph and Piggy desperately tried to maintain the rule of the tribe but when fear approached them, everything went downhill because they became savage. They had mistaken Simon as the beast therefore killing him. “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood” (Pg 186) This quote was said before they killed Simon, they were just doing a ritual until they saw something moving. In the beginning of the book, they would have not killed whatever was moving but run. Instead, they killed the beast. This shows how this environment that the children were placed in has caused them to become savage. They were trying to be brave which showed how they were not afraid of what’s out there but in reality they feared each other.

In conclusion, based on the information that has been given, environment had a huge impact on children. In the beginning of the “Lord of the Flies”, the children got stuck on an island due to an accident and at the end of the book, the children changed. Since they had been stranded on the island for so long they became savage. Their mindset on their environment poisoned them to survive. Fear became a trouble for them and that pushed them to a crueler side making them kill for no reason just like in Simon’s case where they thought of him as the beast, therefore killing him. Same thing as the real world example but in the opposite direction. The environment where Zimmerman was at could have caused him to killed Trayvon due to fear of him having a gun which is savage since he didn’t. But they made a movement called the Black lives matter to support black people’s lives in ways that does not involve killing one another. This is called being civilized. Therefore, this proves how a different environment has an effect on a person on whether they become savage or civilized.

Work Cited

1. Golding, William. Lord of the Flies: A Novel. New York: Perigee, 2006. Print.

2. Botelho, Greg, and Holly Yan. "George Zimmerman Found Not Guilty of Murder in Trayvon Martin's Death." CNN. Greg Botelho and Holly Yan: Cable News Network, 14 July 2013. Web. 06 Apr. 2016.

3. Garza, Alicia, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors. "Black Lives Matter Freedom & Justice for All Black Lives." Black Lives Matter RSS2. Black Lives Matter. Web. 06 Apr. 2016.