“The Rules”

Rules. Ever since we can remember there have always been some sort of rules or restrictions, whether written or unwritten, guiding our way to maintaining a peaceful society. William Golding’s 1955 novel Lord of the Flies explores the conflict between reason’s civilizing influence and man’s innate need for domination by following a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island and assessing the deterioration of their society and breakdown of their rules. Sidney Schanberg’s essay, “The Rules Are All We’ve Got,” written for The New York Times in 1981 shows the pandemonium that can and has occurred when rules and laws are not implemented fully. As displayed in both Golding’s novel and Schanberg’s essay, the existence and enforcement of rules is essential for our society to be functional and civilized, because without rules people would submit to acting on impulse instead of by logical thinking and reason.

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding demonstrates that the dissolution of rules and boundaries can lead to the prevalence of chaos, savagery, and violence as a result of acting in accordance with primal instincts rather than a practical, civilized mindset. At the beginning of the story, the British schoolboys that had crashed onto the island function in a civilized manner. They hold assemblies, elect one boy – Ralph – as their chief, and use a conch as a symbol of democracy. Under Ralph’s instruction, the boys go about trying to be rescued by building a signal fire and at the same time assign jobs and attempt to build shelters.

“There aren’t any grownups. We shall have to look after ourselves.”

The meeting hummed and was silent.

“And another thing. We can’t have everybody talking at once. We’ll have to have ‘Hands up’ like at school… I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak… And he won’t be interrupted. Except by me.”

Jack was on his feet.

“We’ll have rules!” he cried excitedly. “Lots of rules!” (33)

After some time on the island, the feelings of obligation to behave well and morally that civilization had imposed on the boys begins to wear away. The rules set up at some of their first assemblies are enforced less and less, and soon enough the boys are not obliged to act with reason and logic that was once their way of life. Instead, most of the boys on the island, led by Jack and his hunters, encompass a new lifestyle based on savagery and hunting. They become increasingly concerned with bloodlust and power rather than with rescue and being practical. Jack and his followers act on primal impulses to kill and overpower, for example, they play mock hunting games by poking at actual boys, and they brutally slaughter a sow.

The afternoon wore on, hazy and dreadful with damp heat; the sow staggered her way ahead of them, bleeding and mad, and the hunters followed, wedded to her in lust, excited by the long chase and the dropped blood… struck down by the heat, the sow fell and the hunters hurled themselves upon her… the air was full of sweat and noise and blood and terror… Jack was on top of the sow, stabbing downward with his knife… the hot blood spouted over his hands. The sow collapsed under them and they were heavy and fulfilled upon her. (135)

The engaging in savage, tribal-like habits continues to the point where the hunters murder one of the members of the group, Simon, during a ritualistic dance and chant. At Jack’s feast celebrating his new tribe, the boys dance their way into frenzy and kill Simon, mistaking him for the ever-feared “beastie” amidst their chaos. Roger, one of Jack’s primary supporters, goes on to murder Piggy, Ralph’s supporter and proponent of trying to reinstate the rules, civilization, and a peaceful, practical society. By the end of the novel, Jack burns down the island in an attempt to hunt down Ralph by smoking him out, and plans to kill him as well. Golding effectively uses literary devices to display the clash between civilization and savagery, symbolism in particular. The whole story is an allegory; its characters and actions symbolize truths about human existence. In the novel, Golding represents democracy and ordered civilization generally with the conch, Piggy’s glasses, the assembly platform, the signal fire, and Ralph and Piggy themselves. To symbolize man’s innate evil and natural instincts, he uses the jungle, the snake thing or beastie, rocks and boulders, pigs, painted faces, hunting games, the Lord of the Flies, and characters such as Jack and Roger. Overall, the story exemplifies the need for rules to be instilled and enforced in a society in order for it to function practically and peacefully.

“The Rules Are All We’ve Got,” an essay by Sidney Schanberg, illustrates the pandemonium and brutality that ensues the ill enforcement of rules and laws in New York. He confirms “As we are taught from elementary school, the rules are all that stand between us and anti-civilization, that keep us from sliding into brutehood” (1). According to Schanberg, people’s decreasing concern and pure ignorance towards for the wearing away of restrictions is leading to increasing violence and uncivilized behavior. Some examples of recent crimes include a slasher running amok, a pack of humans taunting a troubled young to his death, and another young man who was kidnapped, robbed, and murdered while simply asking for directions. Although these cases are unusually cruel, the mercilessness encountered every day is atrocious. Schanberg supports this by stating, “The murder rate in the city is up to nearly six a day, or about 2,000 a year. There are more than 10 rapes every day and about 300 robberies” (2). This statistic should make humans sick, as it is the savage actions of humans that cause these numbers to be what they are. Schanberg contrasts these crime rates with those of Tokyo, a city where rules and rituals are customary as well as respected, and it becomes evident that their traditional esteem for rules is what makes their crime statistics drastically lower than New York’s. He successfully uses the literary device of allusion by referring to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies to support his thesis that the breakdown of rules leads to disorder and violence.

Both Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, and “The Rules Are All We’ve Got,” by Sidney Schanberg make it clear that rules and their enforcement are vital to our society in order to maintain a nonviolent civilization. When these rules erode, primal instincts are uninhibited and people no longer feel obligated to act morally. Unfortunately, left unchecked, human’s natural impulses and innate desire for domination lead to atrocities such as robbery, rape, and murder. People need to work together by respecting and adhering to the rules so that we may live in harmony with one another.