The Confrontation between Reason and Human Instinct in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies

Abstract

War leaves great effects on people's behavior, including that it generates hatred and a love of revenge, as people are divided between good and evil.But not all the changes that occur in people's behavior are due to wars or the restrictions of society. In some cases, the individual becomes the first responsible for his actions if he loses control over instinct in the absence of the law.Here, the individual needs to make a change in himself to save his civilization and principles. Golding discusses this idea obviously in his novel Lord of the Flies (1954). He considers that man produces evil as bees produce honey (Fable, p.87), because the evilness is rooted within every human being. Therefore, this research focuses on the confrontation between reason and human instinct in the absence of law, which is the boundary between them.