Lord of the Flies as a Totalitarianism Society Essay Example
Lord of the Flies as a Totalitarianism Society Essay Example

Lord of the Flies as a Totalitarianism Society Essay Example

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The main duty of a government is to provide safety to their people and also provide them with the best opportunity to live a life filled with prosperity and enjoyment. A totalitarianism government fails to provide any sense of safety or opportunity since they are controlling and dictating the lives of the people and making decisions that best serve the government, not the people. Throughout history all totalitarianism governments have been formed due to ones obsessive desire to obtain power and control over everything.Some of these fascist leaders include Hitler of Nazi Germany, Mussolini of Italy and Lean Trotsky.

In the novel Lord of The Flies, the desire to obtain power and control leads Jack to become the leader of a totalitarian society. (develop characteristics similar to a totalitarians leader). Throughout

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the novel Jack strikes fear into the other boys lives to achieve and sustain his power as a leader, which is a popular totalitarianism tactic. He harasses and threatens the other boys by using harsh words to humiliate and demoralize them. “And you shut up!Who are you, anyway? Sitting there telling people what to do.

You can not hunt, you can not sing…” In this scene Jack criticizes Ralph’s ability to be an effective leader and verbally abuses him in an attempt discourage him. Jack is doing this because he wants Ralph to resign from his position as a leader so that he can attain the power and control as the new leader of the boys. Another example that shows Jacks totalitarianism characteristics of creating fear in people occurs when he is an argument with Piggy. “The bolting look came into his blue eyes.He

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took a step and stuck his fist into Piggy’s stomach.

” (Golding). This quote exhibits that Jack does not only create fear in others by verbally abusing them, but he also uses violence to construct a powerful sense of fear among the boys. After this scene Piggy does not confront Jack about anything because of the immense fear he has of Jack verbally or physically abusing him. As the novel progresses Jacks ability to inject fear into the lives of the boys becomes extremely effective. “I'm scared of him… If you're scared of someone you hate him but you can't stop thinking about him.

You kid yourself he's all right really, and then when you see him again; it's like asthma and you can't breathe... ” This quote reveals how effective Jacks approach is in creating fear in the boy’s lives.

In this scene one of the boys is explaining the effect that Jack has on him and how he makes him feel, the boy explains that Jack is so frightening that whenever he is around the boy looses his breathe. During Mussolini’s twenty-one years as the leader of the National Fascist Party, he highly depended on using fear to suppress and control the people of Italy.One of Mussolini’s popular slogans is “a good beating does not hurt anyone. ” Jack and Mussolini are remarkably similar because they both use fear to gain and maintain their control as leaders and continue to harness the emotion to oppress and control the lives of people. Jack demonstrates his ability to use the emotion of fear to oppress the lives of the boys, this is similar to totalitarianism societies

since, and the emotion of fear is one of the most effective and popular techniques that totalitarianism societies and leaders use.The journey to attain power and control lead Jack to violate the boy’s freedom of speech, which is common in a totalitarian society.

Throughout the novel Jack opposes any opinion that conflicts with his. “The conch does not count on to of the mountain. So you shut up. ” In this scene Jack and Simon are having a dispute about the coach, as a result Jack verbally harasses Simon and does not allow him to express his opinion or thoughts, which violates his freedom of speech.

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