Lord of the Flies

Henry Van Dyke once said, “Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live.” Death is one of the number one fears in the world. It plays quite a role in your life. But while most people are scared of it, they also become numb to it over time. A major theme in Lord of the Flies is death. Some topics relating to this theme are people becoming numb to death, it’s always hard to kill at first, but you get used to it and death disappears.

Over some time people become numb to death. Jack and the rest of the tribe killed Simon and they deny it and make excuses to cover it up. For example on page 156: “Ralph: �That was murder.’ Piggy: �You stop it! It was dark. There was that bloody dance. It wasn’t – what you said.’” Also, every night on television you are guaranteed to see a news report on someone who has been killed. No one ever really takes that fact in either. Most people shrug it off, they think to themselves that you are bound to see a case of a killing every night, which shows perfectly how people are numb to death.

Secondly, killing is a horrible thing to do (obviously), but people become used to doing it. Killing a pig for Jack was hard at first, but once he finally did, he started to mind less and less. Along with no longer minding killing people after he participated in Simon’s death. This is clear when after Piggy has just been