1. Describe at least one important place in the written text.
   Explain how that place helped you to understand an important message in the text.

In the book, “Lord Of The Flies,” by William Golding, we have an island full of boys who have crash landed there. The way that they crashed caused a lot of damage to a part of the island, which is later described as “Beyond falls and cliffs there was a gash visible in the trees; there were the splinted trunks and then the drag, leaving only a fringe of palm between the scar and the sea.” This is known as the scar, an area of forest that was destroyed by the crashing plane. The boys would continue to survive on the island, with the scar just being another part of it. But to the reader, the Scar can symbolise many different things.

The scar is viewed by many as a symbol of how man, simply by entering paradise, will begin its destruction.
From this, a reader can gather that the author wanted to express how man will destroy something beautiful, and not even care about it afterwards. “Then they broke out into the sunlight and for a while they were busy finding and devouring food as they moved down the scar toward the platform and the meeting.” All these boys only view the scar as a place, like any other, and not like a piece of damaged land that they themselves created. This only proves even more how man is evil in nature, and that we can’t be trusted.

However, I disagree with this point of view. The boys are only a small group of young kids, and can’t be used as a way to describe how an entire half of our species normally acts. And if you don’t care about that, then I will simply prove you wrong using the exact same evidence as before. The scar itself supposedly represents how humanity is a destructive, evil, creature, who can’t be trusted with paradise, for they will destroy it. And yes, man isn’t all that great, we can get a lot of things wrong, and we do tend to break stuff. But that doesn’t mean we are destructive. Take the scar for example; when the boys crash-landed there, a large area of forest was destroyed. But listen to that carefully, I said “Crash-landed.” Those boys had no choice but to break part of the island for their continued survival. Surely, as a fellow person, you can understand the want for continued survival, as the pilot of that plane so dearly wanted. Also, you can’t call someone evil for, lets say, blowing up your house, if it was the only way for their entire family to survive. They were a small group of kids, trying to survive.

The scar was seen as a part of the land by the kids, like it was no different to everything else, and had always been there. William Golding would have wanted the readers to think “These kids don’t care about what they did! Truly, man must be evil if that is the case.” But all it makes me think is that “These kids don’t care about this random piece of land, that as far as they were concerned, had always been there. So what if it looks damaged?” That’s right; the kids didn’t do it, and they didn’t care about it for a reason. “When we was coming down I looked through one of them windows. I saw the other part of the plane. There were flames coming out of it.” This was when the plane was crashing. It sounds bad, doesn’t it? So what did you expect to happen but that some of the island is damaged. As far as those kids are concerned, it is just a part of their continued survival. And saying that survival is evil is obviously completely wrong.

Now, some people might then say that surviving by doing something wrong is evil. That would be correct, but you’ve got to realise, the destruction of that island wasn’t wrong. It was only a small part of their journey on the island. By doing it, the surrounding tree’s and plants can begin to grow back there, giving young saplings a chance at life. Also, it would become the main source of food for the group of boys as having the forest be open allowed the kids to more easily access the fruit trees. It also allowed them to move around more easily, and it was a good landmark. Without the scar, everyone’s continued survival would’ve been far more difficult, seeing as how they all eat from the fruit tree’s in the scar. The reason for this is because they are all afraid of the forest “We can’t get any more wood, Ralph -” “- Not in the dark -” “- not at night -“. They don’t want to risk going into the forest, as they see it as a threat. So instead, in the event they are hungry, they go to the only clearing on the island that still has fruit trees, that being: The scar. And so, by destroying a part of the island, what they ended up doing was indeed good, for everyone involved.

The scar, was it an act of destruction that would only cause damage to the islands ecosystem, made to shown how man is evil and destructive in nature? Or was the scar a way to show how man will destroy something, and end up helping? Does the scar really prove that man is evil; can it really be included as evidence? No, it cannot be included as evidence. Why is this? Well, this is an island full of small boys. They are 5-12 years old. And in no way can that be described as being the same as human society. The point of the island was to show how without the restrictions of society, man will show its true nature and become evil. The scar was evidence to this opinion. But here is the thing. Those little boys did not create the scar, the pilot did! All the boys saw it as is a quick way to get food “Them fruit.’ He glanced around the scar. ‘them fruit,’ He said, ‘I expect -“, and an easy way to go around the island. And who can blame them? They needed food, and there it was. Why feel bad about an area just full of food? There isn’t a reason. So, no. No one can justly say that the scar was an act of destruction by man, that said man didn’t even care about later. It was an act of survival, one designed to help keep those little boys alive, on that horrible island. That island somehow managed to drive perfectly fine small boys whose brains are yet to fully develop, to go crazy. Now that I have fully explained it, it is obvious. In all truth, the scar really just symbolises that man will do anything to survive, and it will do so however it can. Even if William Golding did not mean it to be, that is the conclusion I have come to.