Savagery

Savagery

Who are the real savages? Children or adults? There is a fine line drawn between children and adults when it comes to making violent decisions. Adults have the responsibility over disciplining their children.  as, adults grow up, and develop a responsibility over the decisions they make. Kids still are taught the rights and wrongs in life, and adults establish whether to live in the norm of society. Meaning, following each rule and doing the right thing when the situation is approached. According to the novel adults are more savage, because of influences and “Reasons” behind their actions. The difference is that children are motivated by the influence of adults. Interpreting that they just follow the surroundings that adults provide them, but with adults they have the power and responsibility over themselves, which gives them more freedom, and also more ability to be savage.

On the other hand, children can act in an untamed matter, but only to the extent of the limit of freedom they are given. If a child is given tons of freedom, they can gain access to a lot of things as to a child that is contained without much freedom provided to them. However in the “Lord of the Flies,” the boys have the island all to themselves without adults and with plenty of exemption. When the boys were surrounding Robert and hurting him with Eric’s spear, there was not an adult figure to tell the boys to stop fooling around. Moments before the boys formed a circle, they were discussing their plan of hunting for animals. When they returned, they started fooling around (as boys do) and started to get carried away by harming Robert as all the boys were gathered around him enjoying the breathtaking moment. It was all fun and games until one of them was the one getting hurt.  A passage from the novel of the exhilarating scene is, “They got his arms and legs. Ralph, carried away by a sudden thick excitement, grabbed Eric’s spear and jabbed at Robert with it. ‘Kill him! Kill him!’” (Chapter 7, Page 114).  This moment from displays the fact that the boys already had experience killing something.  The idea that they were getting pleasure and joy from it all goes to show that they have the tendency to act on a savage manner to former surroundings. Being on an island led them to a desperate manner of survival and pleasure.

As said, adults have a lot more freedom than children do. The recent event of the Brussel bombing  is proof that there is reasoning behind the circumstances that get played out. What happened was that the same people who were behind the Paris attack that occurred in 2014, planted three bombs in an airport. Unfortunately, only two out of the three bombs actually went off, but just the two did enough damage to kill about thirty five people, and injured around eighty-one. The reasoning behind it all was that the terrorist were finishing the damage they did to Paris. It was also stated that because of the arrest of some of their leaders, they wanted revenge, and bombing an airport just had to do. It was the fact that the terrorist’s fellow helpers were going down, and someone was going to suffer in response. According to the BBC News Website, “The Islamic State (IS) group said it was behind the attacks in a statement issued IS- linked Amad agency.” These three or men who were involved in the appalling scene seemed to have a reasonable reaction towards the rest of their leaders getting punished. The fastest reaction that came to their minds was killing and torturing innocent human beings. If a kid had a best friend that got punished, they might lecture whoever punished their friend, but they wouldn’t go to an well known place and bomb it. First off, a kid would not have access to the particular weapons to harm another human, and the disciplinarian would have kept the kid in his or her place.

In similarity, both examples showed that the boys on the island resorted to what was entertaining. There isn’t a kid who thinks it is all fun and games until someone gets hurt. In “The Lord of the Flies,” people get killed instead of just hurt. The boys did not have a reason to kill one another. it was just the fact that they were stranded, and wanted to rough house.In circumstance, their actions brought out the savagery from their hearts. With the Brussel airport attack the adults supposedly had a reason behind their action. In both situations, the kids and adults were wrong. It was the the comparison of the reactions in response to their actions and surroundings. It was rational for the boys to suddenly lose their minds, because they were stuck on an island without adults. The novel showed a clear example after the boys were fooling around, “Jack’s arm came down; the heaving circle cheered and made pig-dying noises. Then they lay quiet panting, listening to Robert’s frightened snivels. He wiped his his face with a dirty arm and made an effort to retrieve his status” (Page 115). Being raised by your parents, and having even the littlest opportunity to be free of them, will lead to one committing an action that they would not be allowed to do.

In reality, most of the decisions people make in life determine where people stand as individuals. In the end, we are only really responsible for ourselves. Not everyone is given the freedom needed to achieve certain goals. The goals can either be beneficial or negative thing to achieve. The novel, “The Lord of Flies”  gives the reader the opportunity to ponder on the fact that what surrounds you can later can eventually become you. The Brussel’s bombing gave evidence that things can get blown out of proportion. All of it just goes to show that adults take things to another level, while children are limited to level in which they are allowed to take a situation such as being stuck on an island.

Works Cited

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Perigree,2006

Morris, Chris. "Brussels Attacks: Zaventem and Maelbeek Bombs Kill Many - BBC News." BBC

News. BBC News, n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2016. <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35869254>.