Do you think that in the end, all human society runs the risk of being violent?

Jack and his group are very violent. They dance and sing, Kill the beast! Cut its throat! Spill its blood! Their main focus is hunting and hurting people. An example of them hurting people is when it says Jack tied Wilfred up and none of the other group members untied him. Roger throws rocks at other boys and Jack and his group poke Sam in the ribs and force Sam and Eric into their group. After they killed Simon, Jack says that Simon was the beast in disguise. Jack does not feel guilty at all about killing Simon.

         Ralph had many good ideas for his group. He made rules that he thought would think help them survive on the island. His first rule was that they must have the fire going all day and all night long. Other rules were that they had to go to the bathroom away from the fruit trees and that the person with the conch was the only one allowed to talk. Each of these rules had a reason. The fire would help them be rescued, the bathroom rule would help keep things more sanitary, and the conch would keep things more organized.

         I think that in the end, all human society does take the risk of becoming violent and only caring about themselves. Jack only cared about himself being safe and being in power. The rest of Jacks group does not care about anyone, they just want to hunt and kill. None of them were affected when they killed Simon or Piggy, and all of them were participating in the act of trying to kill Ralph. Piggy only felt a little guilty about killing Simon but still tried to make and excuse saying that it was an accident. I believe that Ralph was the only one that did not change a lot because he still cared about everyone including Piggy. Ralph is the one that wants to make peace with Jack and Ralph felt really guilty about killing Simon and admitted that it was murder. 

What is the author saying about our species?

I think that the author of Lord of the Flies is trying to tell us something about our species. I think that people are born to be nice, but throughout their life, they learn how to be mean and selfish. At the beginning of the book, most of the boys are nice to each other, except a few such as Ralph and Jack. As the book goes on and they start to become familiar with the island, they become selfish, rude and want power. At the beginning of the book, Ralph and Jack were the only ones that were rude to the other boys. I think they were rude because both of them had a little power over another person or a group before they met the other boys. I believe that with the little power that they had, they felt like they were extremely powerful. I think that this happened because when a person is somewhere they don’t know with people they are not familiar with, all they want to do is fit in. As they get to know the land and the people, they want to be more noticed. Ralph used Piggy’s nickname “piggy” to get more noticed when he commented about it.

             I think that there is hope for the human species. I think that there is still hope because not all people in the world are cruel and selfish. People only become mean and selfish when they grow up around it. If a parent stops being mean and selfish to their child, there is a less chance that the child will grow up to be mean and selfish. 

Can we trust people to be good?

I think we can trust people to be good. Inside every person, there is good. When a person is acting mean, they are either trying to impress someone, or trying to make themselves feel more powerful. Also, people do things because they are influenced by their childhood environment. For example, a parent that abuses their child most likely was abused as a child.

            If a group of people were left on an island with no external threats, and adequate food and water, I think they would sometimes get along, but at other times I don’t think they would. I think that for the first couple of weeks they will get along very well because they will all need to figure thing out as a group such as what they will sleep in and where. I believe that things will run a lot smoother if they develop a set of rules. After a while, if they don’t have a specific set of rules, the group of people will become very familiar with the land and things will start to fall apart. I think there will start to become one or two people the become the “leader”, and others that become the “followers”. The problem with leaders and followers is that the “leaders” choose the rules and the “followers” don’t have a say in any of them.