Do you want to see something really amazing? Look here, in Chapter 5:
A flurry of wind made the palms talk and the noise seemed very loud now that darkness and silence made it so noticeable. Two grey trunks rubbed each other with an evil speaking that no one had noticed by day.
Did you see it? The word "evil." Well, guess what: that is the only time that word is used in the entire novel. How smart of Golding, how shrewd.
What we all think we are looking at in this story of stranded boys is how things fall into chaos, power grabbing, destruction, selfishness, egotism, violence and murder... all things we associate with evil. But, as much as evil may (or may not) be implied, it is never spelled out as such. For, the novel may be suggesting: Who's to say? Who's to judge?
Simon sees the rotting pig's head, the indifferent buzzing flies, and it speaks to him of manunkind's baser instincts. Is it speaking of evil? Would Jack have heard the same thing from the head of the pig he and his band had just impaled? Would he have cared?
And what if no naval officer ever came to the island, and the group of painted hunters were the only ones to survive and flourish? Would they see themselves as evil? And outside of the island in the big world, after the war was over, would the winning side see itself as the aggressor and as the evil empire?
How telling that Golding avoided the question of pure good and real evil, for he knew that history and the truth are written by those who survive and who gain and retain power. People act as they will; evil is a judgment of others that is made by the weak, the innocent, and the vanquished... or by the powerful in order to gain more power.
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