Explore these ideas using some examples (from the book and elsewhere) to back up your opinion
I think he is and it is quite frightening. Golding felt that there is an evil side within human nature that prohibits peace. This is why he chose children not yet fully indoctrinated into the world of sympathy, empathy, laws and consequences. Given a chance, people will gravitate to their evil side. We also have the capacity for good but this must be fostered and learned. The dark is simply too tempting for us. Even Simon, Golding's Christ-figure, is tempted.
Other writers of Golding's day contended that man is basically good, but society corrupts us. Golding contended the opposite: man is basically bad, and society is all we have to keep the Beast at bay. This novel explains that contention. In the absence of a civil society, the boys succumb to their Beast, and terror and chaos reign on the island . . . as they do on our planet in many ways.
