Topic > Immoral Behavior in Lord of the Flies - 1342

William Golding, the author of the acclaimed book Lord of the Flies, took the reader to a world where underage boys live on an uncharted island with no adults and no one else human contact; only themselves and find a way to survive and leave the island. However, it is not an easy task, Golding shed innovative light on how boys will actually act without authority in their lives and the term “boys will be boys” was born. The kids were put in a situation where they were forced to act a certain way by nature and condition. Consequently, the wild and immoral behavior displayed by the boys can be attributed to factors fueled by the situation/environment. For new readers who start reading the book, they see the kids in a kind of shell. The conch was the only thing that kept the boys with a moral glue who knew what their limits were. Golding states the power the conch once had over boys: "Conch! Conch!" - shouted Jack. "We don't need the conch anymore. We know who should say what. What good was talking Simon, or Bill, or Walter? It's time some people knew to shut up and let things decide." to the rest of us" (139). The order they had before breaking the shell into small pieces had no meaning to the other boys and they could do whatever they wanted. The shell maintained order and had the power it the boys needed to listen to each other; it also meant how together when the shell is destroyed you are left with the boys? The boys no longer have order and become wild he was trying to reason with everyone what would be the right thing to do; even though no one paid attention to what he had to say but they listened to him. Consequently, without the voice of reasoning, there is no obstacle on the island as to what he could happen next to the boys. The boys took on a character with which they were unfamiliar and had to adapt to a character who was not familiar with such a hunter and/or gatherer. I recently read a book called The Sunflower by Simon Wisenthal. Wisenthal recalls his time in the concentration camp and a dying SS soldier asked him to forgive him and his people for the actions he had committed towards the Jewish population. The SS soldier's story is that he didn't grow up as a Nazi killing machine, but actually grew up as a good student, with very curricular activities and raised in a Catholic family. As a result, the SS soldier had to become this Nazi character to fill in for whatever dementia sufferer transpired. By adaptive behavior he is referring to BF Skinner's rat experiment on how he had to adapt and learn to pull the lever an excessive number of times to receive the food pellet. Slater says: “He found that these rats quickly learn to press a lever if they are rewarded with food. This time don't worry about pressing once with the pink padded foot. Press three times. Contingencies of reinforcement change how the animal responds” (Slater 10-11). The rat studied and who knew how to press the level already knew how many presses of the lever he needed to get food