Being civil in our society is not as valued as it used to be. Chivalry used to be a big thing, and it was encouraged for young men to be chivalrous to women in order that they my treat their future wife in the same gentle way. There are two definitions for civil - one means "civil and polite", and the other is "of or relating to ordinary citizens and their concerns, as distinct from military matters".
A Civil War is far from Civil - it is the end of civilization and the beginning of vicious, animal savagery. It is the split of a nation, and breaking democracy and all things that unite, and therefore does not fall under normal citizens and their concerns, because a war is between governments, and their tin soldiers that are no longer human - they become numbers. All soldiers are numbers once they step onto the battlefield. Casualty numbers, ranks, coordinates that they are located at...the list goes on.
People in a war are no longer people. We refer to them as a group - a faceless group who dies off and where people are killed, but it is just a group. Civilians are just "civilians" or "civilian casualties". They aren't specific people.
We put a certain meaning on these things, but the deaths are a passing thing and mean nothing to us. It's an unreal situation when someone dies - whether in war or someone close to us. William Golding explains it well - after all the boys kill Simon when Ralph and Piggy are talking: Ralph continued to rock to and fro. "It was an accident," said Piggy suddenly, "that's what it was. An accident." His voice shrilled again. "Coming in the dark-he had no business crawling like that out of the dark. He was batty. He asked for it."..."You didn't see what they did-" (157).
The boys start to convince themselves that they were never in the circle that killed Simon, even though they are just as guilty as all the rest of the boys who have turned savage. They convince everyone else around them that they were on the outside and didn't take part in the dance. The thing becomes 'an accident', as Piggy says (Golding 157), and the boys force themselves to believe that it never happened and was all a dream. Any death takes on a surreal quality - even the death of something as small as the death of a wild animal. There seems like a sacred line that cannot be crossed unless you are cruel.
I cannot stand blood, though I write about it in my books. Blood means life, and it also shows the absence of life. Killing an animal, to me, is crossing the line from civil to savage. Now, I'm not talking about the meat we eat for food - that is fine with me because I don't see it done and it is done for food. I'm talking about the brutal killing of something just for sport. Most people when they hunt, hunt to get venison or meat as well as hides and pictures and antlers. What I see as savage is poaching. That is falling into the cold-blooded killing of a being without good reason to kill except for evil black market money.
In Lord of the Flies, the killing of the sow (Golding 135) illustrates this savagery perfectly. When the boys go hunting, they don't really go hunting for meat. They could just eat fruit and they would survive just fine without the meat, but instead, they go hunting, and when they find the sow and are ready to strike the killing blow, they torture her and stab her for a long time just to see her blood. They don't end her pain swiftly as most hunters would do, but purposely try to bring her pain before they kill her. When they finally do kill her, though, the exhilaration fades quickly and soon they are back to hunting for food and not for sport. The urge to injure and hurt overpowers them, and the savagery overpowers the civility they might have once had when they might have just killed the pig straight away and not tortured her. There can be no civility where savagery reigns.
I think that killing pigs is a way for Jack to look superior because he can hunt and Ralph cannot (image), but also because he has a thirst for blood. He wants to kill because some primal urge in him is pushing him to 'turn to the dark side' and kill only for the exhilaration of killing something (savagery). This is also what pushes him and the boys to beat Robert: Presently they were all jabbing at Robert who made mock rushes. Jack shouted. "Make a ring!" The circle moved in and around. Robert squealed in mock terror, then in real pain...the butt end of a spear butt fell on his back as he blundered among them...They got his arms and legs. Ralph, carried away by a sudden thick excitement, grabbed Eric's spear and jabbed at Robert with it.(Golding 114).
At this point in the story, I thought that Robert would be killed, because the boys then chant "kill him! Kill him!" and Robert begins to struggle. What is strange is how the boys, after this point when they realize that they want to kill someone (and almost kill Robert), they go straight to 'that was a good game' as Jack says (Golding 115). They don't seem to want to admit that they are turning savage, though the evidence of their savagery is everywhere. They don't care about the conch anymore.
It only has power for Piggy and Ralph, and Jack says that it doesn't work on the side of the island that he controls: "And the conch doesn't count at this end of the island-" (Golding 150). They want to kill and hunt more, and they even make a 'tribe' where Jack says they will have fun. They call him Chief, even though they elected Ralph chief, and all are referred to as savages. They lose their identity and names and become just 'savages'. They no longer know who they are, and are fully inducted into the savage tribe, where their identity is. Even their chant betrays their true inner feelings and how swayed they have been by blood and savagery: "Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!" (Golding 114). Or as seen when they do their dance that kills Simon: "Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!" (Golding 152).
Once savagery begins to take root, then civilization ceases to exist and order is replaced by chaos. It is almost impossible to fix and change back to order again. Just as it is difficult to move from one end of the good and evil alignment chart (provided here for your benefit), it is hard to move from chaos to order, and from savagery to civilization.
The only thing that is not hard to do is make a good person evil and change a good civilization into a savage one. The easiest way to do that is to create a 'civil' war as Ralph and Jack did in Lord of the Flies.
-bookhouse4
Sources:
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- The picture on the right -->
- Google definitions
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