Fear to Self-Awareness or Fun to Self-Destruction in Lord of the Flies: William Golding’s Heart of Darkness

Abstract

William Golding depicts two different processes of self-destruction and self-recognition, which are acted out respectively by two little boys, Jack and Ralph, in Lord of the Flies, much like Kurtz and Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. In Conrad’s work, the effect of self-destruction echoes, like Kurtz’s cry of horror, through the fear of which Marlow recognizes the darkness of man’s nature as the knowledge of the self. In Golding’s work, the process of self-annihilation, instead of its effect, is illuminated by the gradual metamorphosis of Jack throughout the novel, who, seeking the fun of the beast-hunt, like Kurtz’s ivory-hunt, turns himself into the beast that is his own selfless being. Ralph, on the other hand, in fear of the beast, realizes that the plaything-conch is powerless with the unknown beast or the unconscious self. Moreover, Ralph, hunted like the beast in the last chapter of the novel, brings himself out as the beast, which vivifies Kurtz’s struggle with his own beast in fear of the wilderness. Still, the self-knowledge of both Conrad’s Marlow and Golding’s Ralph is limited; they recognize the darkness/beast within man’s heart, yet they are not capable of identifying it, a job that is left for Simon. Golding, in this regard, suggests that Conrad’s Kurtz, the virtuous imperialist, is slipped into the path of self-extinction in the wilderness. The human desire for power, which originates from pride and is strongly evidenced in Jack and Kurtz, is inherent in the unconscious, like the beast, from which the fear of the unknown rises along with the innocent desire for mastery. The fear stimulates the desire to explode into violence, out of which another, stronger desire may fester into evil. In the process, the fear leads to self-destruction, with fun being created by the violent release of the desire. Still, identified as the unconscious self, the fear may serve as a guide to self-recognition.