Crimes Against Humanity In Lord Of The Flies

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In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, he tells a tale of a group of school aged boys who end up stranded on an island without any adults. During the book, there is a struggle for power over who gets to be “Chief”. This struggle is mainly between two contrasting characters, Ralph, the protagonist, and Jack, the antagonist. Jack is guilty of crimes against humanity due to the atrocities some of the other boys experienced under his rule. At many points towards the end of the novel, Jack who eventually takes over almost all of the tribe, takes part in acts that violate the U.N. regulations on Humanitarian crimes. The international regulation on crimes against humanity defines crimes against humanity as being non- isolated, but part of a government …show more content…
His most major crimes against humanity are the murders of Simon and Piggy. Both of these murders meet the criteria for a human rights violation as the Merriam Webster Dictionary defines murder as “ the crime of unlawfully killing a person” and Ralph was the instigator of both of those deaths. Ralph and his group of hunters also heavily persecuted Ralph’s group, stealing things from them and even beating them for merely being on the other side of the conflict as them. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines persecution as “t o harass or p unish in a manner designed to injure, grieve, or afflict; s pecifically : to cause to suffer because of belief.” In this case, Ralph and his clan were persecuted because of their belief that making it off of the island as quickly as possible rather than spending all the time hunting and having fun was the optimal plan of action. They were persecuted in a number of ways when Jack led his attacks on their campground and when he specifically had his henchman hunt down Ralph towards the end of the novel. Extermination is defined in the Rome Statute as denying basic necessities to a certain group that they need to survive. This is done by Jack when he leads the raid on Ralph's camp i which they eventually steal his glasses, leaving him almost completely blind. This is extermination because without his glasses, Piggy is unable to function on a basic human level
Jack was not however, the only one guilty in these trials, as all of the other buys save Simon have committed grave offenses. For example, it was not Jack, but Roger who let loose the boulder that killed Piggy, and everyone on the island was there when the boys tore apart Simon.The boys came to there senses afterwards, however, some of them were scarred mentally by the incident, especially Ralph, as he kept repeating “That was murder” Pg.

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