Uncivilized against Civilized:
Lord of the Flies and Rule of Law
by Benan Bakkur and Burak Çayır
Lord of the Flies (1954), Williams Golding’s remarkable allegoric novel, shows how the rule of law is important and if there is no obeying to rule of law, it ironically results in destruction. Every person has the intuition of civilization, rule, and law. The book proves this even in its first chapters. As soon as children find each other, even if they are not even adults, they want to choose a leader and they want to rule. It is both because of the fact that they have that in humans’ blood and because of the familiar feeling of their customs. Ralph and Piggy find a conch shell, and Golding uses this image to symbolize ‘the rule of law’. With this conch shell, people on the island escape from the savagery: the conch keeps the people together and equal.
Ralph’s democratic administration technique is much better than Jack’s wild and dictatorial point of view. In Ralph’s way, every person on the island has equal rights and not just Ralph’s opinions are important, but everyone has the right to express their ideas and, to defend their ideas. In this way, everyone on the island is equal and thus feels free. Jack’s way, on the other hand, is much more selfish and destructive. The only thing he can think of is to kill: his example proves how people get more and more hideous if unchecked. His actions are ruining everything, all the values, all the mentalities, and all the rules. People and democratic administration should be like Ralph’s way. Everyone has the freedom of speech; equal rights and the rule of law come first to maintain a steady and organized civilization. Jack’s point of view represents today’s world in a way; he is self-centered and cares about his priorities first. He does not want to listen to anyone else’s opinion. It is even possible to say that he is fascist and destructive; he is just like Hitler. As well as the leaders, this book gives a perfect reflection of the people too. People are like a sheep in the book. They are with the majority regardless of their own thoughts, as if they had no opinion of their own. This sense of following the majority can be seen with the example of the conch. Your opinion holds the same weight as that of the major leader as the holder of the conch.
It is possible to establish a civilized society, just by following the basic demands of being in a society that is by abiding by its rules. Otherwise, only destructive, and sad results are obtained, and by following a destructive, violent path, all values that need to be protected come to an end. Living in an anarchist structure without rules, with everyone doing their own thing is an end of the civilized society and is an end of the values of humanity. Without rule of law, there would not even be a society.
