Variation in how humans perceive things is part of the complexity of humanity. What is considered bad for one person may be considered good for another. The struggle between good and evil is one of the main themes in William Golding's Lord of the Flies, when a group of innocent boys, abandoned on an island, try to build a civilization from nothing. The question is: Even if their actions were wrong, are the boys themselves evil for committing them? The boys in Lord of the Flies were not evil, but rather driven by fear and the struggle for survival to become savage, and were inhibited by their instincts from putting their survival before their morals. Both animals and humans kill when they are in need. When cornered, they will attack and when hungry they will go hunting. For example, when Ralph is hunted by Jack's "tribe", he slaughters some of the other boys to preserve himself. As the book progresses, the boys slowly return to their instincts and become more animalistic. When the boys believe that Simon is the beast during their banquet, “they jump on the beast, scream, hit, bite, tear. There were no words and no movement except the tearing of teeth and claws” (153). Golding's description of this scene leads the reader to believe that the boys have engaged in barbaric behavior and leaves them quite upset. No civilized being would ever tear apart tooth and claw in such a situation. All the boys saw themselves in danger and eliminated the threat (their perception of the beast). Instincts in situations like these are unconscious actions and therefore do not make a person “good” or “bad”. Only someone's morals can define them so, and they do not apply to actions in a life-or-death situation. The ideas of... half of the paper... ideas were quickly lost, and nothing was accomplished. This is because there is no firm authority on the island. When society is created, so are its rules of acceptance. As society develops and changes, their values ​​and opinions about what is “right” and “wrong” also change. No one can be exclusively good or bad. Rather, their natural instinct drives them to perform actions that are then viewed by society as good or bad, and only premeditated situations should be used to judge someone's character. Since each person in that society is an individual, opinions will vary slightly. Those boys were struck by the horrible and disgusting things and feelings they had experienced on that island. This, combined with their instincts, pushed them to commit their “crimes”. None of the inhabitants of that island were evil. They simply did what they had to do to get out alive.