The Power of Savagery

Power is an inevitable element in society. People’s need to have such power in order to control or influence others is a natural human instinct. The need for power always changes the actions of people. It can either alter one’s morals or feed to their fear of distrust. The way one deals with power shows how people deal with situations they don’t understand. The world has seen their share of lack of leadership, and their share of leaders who many should stand up to. These communities all deal with that change in different ways, whether it’s savage or civilized. A savage reaction would be acts of violence and no control. Civilized points to organized control. Overall in systems with unidentified rules, people act in savage ways when they don’t understand a situation, hold the want for continuous power, or are told to from a leader.

William Golding tackles these ideas in his novel Lord Of The Flies, where a group of young British boys crash on an island without any adult supervision. Ralph, one of the boys, gets everyone together by blowing into a conch shell, leading all of the boys to meet on the beach. The first thing the boys take action on is deciding who will be their leader, as an act for the need to have someone to look towards. This vote is concluded, “Every hand outside the choir except Piggy’s was raised immediately. Then Piggy, too, raised his hand grudgingly into the air. Ralph counted. “I’m chief then”(23).” Without the obvious power being in adults, since there are no adults, the first instinct of the boys was to figure out who would take that place. This action plays into the idea that people feel the need for a leader to look to for guidance. When the idea of leadership and power arises, then someone will come out and proclaim leadership. This is much like how Jack immediately said that he should be leader before the boys voted, “I ought to be chief, (22).” This is a want to have someone to look to in order to have control and order within a group.

After the boys decide on Ralph as leader, they set up camp and build a signal fire. A few days into their survival, two of the boys come back to the camp claiming to have seen a beast. The other boys react to this discovery, “The circle of boys shrank away in horror. Johnny, yawning still, burst into noisy tears and was slapped by Bill till he choked on them... “This’ll be a real hunt! Who’ll come?” (100-101).” The boy’s reaction to the discovery of the beast is of extreme shock and horror. This is one of the main fears that the boys deal with throughout the novel. They seem to not know how to approach it until Jack takes the lead on going to hunt “the beast,” and presents his idea as bigger and better than the rest. This action of hunting represents how we, as humans, attack things we don’t understand, and follow the lead of whoever steps up, even if it is savage in nature. After Jack receives backlash for his idea, he attacks those going against him by saying, “You’re always scared (101),” and “This is a hunter’s job (102).” This was the beginning of the power struggle between Jack and Ralph. It comes to show how Jack’s belief in holding power is to push down others in order to put down their stance on their own power. His power changes him to begin taking steps of savagery. The attack on the others in the group by Jack is a result of his own fear of the beast and losing power.

We see his savagery as a result of power come to life when he gets most of the boys to join his tribe of hunters. The group with Jack is continuously very frightened of the beast and sees the reaction to the situation as automatically killing it. When they kill pigs for food, they chase and chant around them. This ritual continues when they find “the beast” in their eyes, or Simon in ours as the readers. They overlook the appearance of “the beast” as Jack’s fear takes the lead in immediately reacting to this unknown creature. “”Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” Now out of terror rose another desire, thick, urgent, blind (152).” Jack’s fear of losing power has led him to act in savage ways and immediately react to everything with violence. This role of leadership also leads those under him into savagery. He forces them to kill, kill, kill, and they follow since they look to him for guidance. The boys are scared of the beast almost as much as Jack is of losing power, therefore they listen when the savage acts come to be Jack’s decision.

These themes of leadership and savagery can be seen in the real world by looking into the situation in Myanmar. Following a military coup, the rule of law was eliminated almost entirely. Burmese women were mistreated and abused on a wide scale. Small militarized enforcement began to occur where the “law enforcers” of certain districts abused their power and took over the people, telling them what to do and enforcing rules that were never legally put in place. People looked to these people of leadership for guidance despite their savage ways, which then led to a population of violence. These people in power then reacted to a small group they didn’t fully understand, a muslim minority. The militarized enforcement abused, raped, and tortured people of the Muslim minority. These savage acts were based off of the want to marginalize people in cruel and unjust ways, and was held because of a government who hasn’t had a democratic leader until recently. This situation is representative of how the savagery was enforced by power, promoted by fear, and spread by other’s fear looking to the position of power.

By looking into savagery as a result of leadership in Lord of The Flies, as well as Myanmar, we see how people look to positions of power for guidance, and follow the savagery. When people fear something, they immediately look to and follow whoever gives a solution that is informed as the most powerful. One in power may use savagery as a form of showing this power, as a result of their own fear of losing it. When savagery is promoted, there is a constant battle of more power between the people. This fear with savagery also turns to things we don’t fully understand. This comes to light when people’s immediate reaction to the unknown is to attack, much in the way the boys attacked the unknown beast.

Works cited

Golding, William. Lord of The Flies. New York: Penguin, 2006.                                                                                               

"Stanley Milgram: Obedience to Authority Or Just Conformity?" PsyBlog. N.p., 18 Dec. 2011. Web. 30 Mar. 2017. http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/02/stanley-milgram-obedience-to-authority.php

"No Rule of Law." No Rule of Law | Social Watch. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2017. http://www.socialwatch.org/node/10920