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Evil Problem "No one who conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast and seeks to wrestle with them can expect to come through the struggle unscathed." -Dora (Complete Psychological Works) There exists an all poweful force in this universe that makes man fall into an eternal abyss of illusion and hell. It is called Maya (Cosmic Illusion) by the Vedanta and"evil" by the English It wounds the opponent always, many times almost fatally. It is the most ferocious, wild, and swinish beast in existence. Sometimes a mere glance at it can provoke it to attack. There is only weapon that can kill this "evil", that can wipe it away once and for all, that can triumph over all else: and that is the Highest Good. In Golding’s Lord of the Flies, through the characters and symbolic happenings, it is shown that in all being lies this Maya, or illusion which we call evil, and the Highest Good and if either of these are dove into, astounding effects on the human heart are inevitable. Golding shows that how even within innocent school boys, there lies this tremendous force of illusion. As he builds up his novel, he reveals how evil manifests itself in different ways until it reaches its climactic maximum. The story can be said to be an allegory of present day society, for evil is not just in the pages of books but is a reality that affects the world. Golding makes his central theme very clear when the pig’s skull, which represent evil, is speaking to Simon. The Beast says, "Fancy thinking the beast was something that you could hunt and kill!" Evil is not something in gross form that one can handle by physical means. "You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close!"(143) As Mahatma Gandhi once said, "The only devils in the world are the ones running around in our own hearts." With the manifestation of these devils, our hearts as well as the hearts of others are scarred more and more. "I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?," says the Beast. All of the characters in the book, Ralph, Jack, Piggy, Samneric, the rest of the biguns, and all of the littluns and even Simon are injured and "scathed" as they battle a force which they are just discovering and find no means to fight. Ralph, one of the most important characters of the novel, is scathed by the "beast" or "evil" as he goes closer and closer to it and finally confronts it. When he first discovers himself on the island, which can be compared to the battle ground of the heart, he stands on his head in a playful mood, innocent and ignorant of the inevitable war of the future.
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